


Gifted or Cursed Memories

by InBetweens



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Mentions of Dissociative Fugue Disorder, Mentions of PTSD, SQBBSept2014, Swan-Mills Family, physical fights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:33:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 75,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2322278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InBetweens/pseuds/InBetweens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With little time and nothing more Regina can do, when she gifts Emma and Henry with new memories of the last 12 years she fails to realize what she’s giving them will change everything.</p><p>IMPORTANT INFO: This is a take on the new cliché ‘what if’ AU involving the memories Regina gives to Henry and Emma at the end of Season 3A. This story deals with mentions of PTSD and dissociative fugue disorder. </p><p>Violent fights and situations can be found within.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life as She Knew It

**Title:** Gifted or Cursed Memories  
 **Author** : InBetweens (Tweenlove_n_hate)  
 **Rating** : T for language to M for sexual situations  
 **Plot** : With little time and nothing more Regina can do, when she gifts Emma and Henry with new memories of the last 12 years she fails to realize what she’s giving them will change everything. This is a take on the new cliché ‘what if’ AU involving the memories Regina gives to Henry and Emma at the end of Season 3A. This story deals with mentions of PTSD and dissociative fugue disorder.

 

 ** Prologue  
** _‘Life as she Knew it’_

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

“Regina! You can’t just…” Emma gestured violently through the air, unable to complete her thought. She had no defense against the anger rolling off the brunette in waves.

 “Just what Emma? Hmm?” Regina tilted her head to the side, her eyes ablaze as she stood half a room away from the bounty hunter. “Get angry that you’re bringing my son to see that witch!? He shouldn’t have to be around  _that_!”

 “ _That_ …just so happens to be my birth mother!” Emma felt her hands fist as her heart raced against her chest. “You never see me complaining about how much time your parents get to spend with Henry.”

Regina scuffed and rolled her eyes, “That’s because my parents aren’t drug addicted abusive pieces of shit!” 

“Damn it, Regina. She’s trying!” Emma can feel the sting of tears in the back of her eyes but fights them off.

“She is trying, Emma. She’s trying to weasel more money out of us.” Regina looks up at the ceiling, how many times do they have to have the same fight? Why couldn’t Emma see that the woman who gave birth to her wasn’t worth trying to save?

Looking back to Emma, Regina continued, only the slightest bit guilty when she saw the start of tears in Emma’s eyes. She needed Emma to hear her. She needed her to understand that this was for the best. That leaving the woman out of their lives was for the best.

“How stupid do you have to be to believe that she actually cares about you, Emma? She only comes to you when she wants something. Money, my money, to be frank.”

Emma recoiled at the statement. The subject of money still a very sore subject with the blonde, who had always been ‘beneath’ Regina. She’d never made close to what Regina continues to make and it has often times made Emma feel like a kept woman. Emma’s place as Regina’s partner was always under deep scrutiny because of their age difference, her ‘immaturity’, and her lack of social and economic standing.

“That was low…” Emma ground out. “I never gave her  _your_  money.” What money she had given to her mother was hers to give, it was not in their joint bank account but in Emma’s personal savings.

Regina knew she struck low but she offered no apology, merely crossed her arms in defiance against her own wish to console the blonde. Regina hated it when she had a right to be angry with Emma but her heart wanted nothing more than to comfort and hold her to make everything better.

There was a long silence, the first since this fight began almost an hour ago. Neither were willing to say a word. Both were far too stubborn to say what needed to be said to concede this battle. They both wanted their points to be heard and taken to heart. They weren’t willing to just go on as if this wasn’t bothering them.

Emma doesn’t like that Regina still treats her like a child that needs to be educated and protectd.

Regina doesn’t like that Emma has to save everyone no matter how misguided her attempts are.

It started in the kitchen where they had been cleaning the dishes together and the topic of what Emma and Henry had done today came up. Emma hadn’t mentioned their trip until Henry was in bed for a reason. Emma was surprised that they hadn’t woken Henry up as their screaming match had moved from the kitchen into the dining room and finally into Regina’s study where they’d closed the doors so their voices wouldn’t carry to Henry’s room.

Regina never liked Emma’s mother; had always been suspicious of her reappearance so late in her life. Emma could at least admit that Regina had valid reasons to be weary of Cora. She had turned out to be just as troubled and shifty as Regina had suspected from the very beginning. Her mother was a con artist, and had fooled Emma once before. This time Emma wasn’t falling for her tricks or playing her games but Regina didn’t trust her. Regina still saw her as that nineteen year old mother newly released from juvie in need of rescuing.

Emma wasn’t naive. Or maybe she liked to think she wasn’t. Her history with people just seemed to prove how mistaken she was. She had trusted in the foster parents that said they loved her, even after they’d beaten her so badly that they broke her arm. She’d trusted in the system to find her a good home to go to before she’d age out. She’d trusted Neal and had been sent to juvenile detention for her misguidance where she gave birth to the best thing in her life.

The only time she had trusted someone and it hadn’t backfired on her was when she had trusted in Regina. Had put her future in Regina’s hands and had her trust rewarded in ways she wouldn’t have been able to fathom had it not actually happened.

“She wanted to see me and Henry before she left.” Emma explained, her voice softer as she refused to meet Regina’s eyes.

“Right, and I bet she took the chance to ask for more money. How much did you give her this time?” Regina snarled, still furious at Emma for giving that woman three grand of her hard earned money.

Emma cringed, staring at the ground. “I gave her enough money for the one way bus ticket and some food money.”

“Which she’ll probably use on alcohol or drugs. You’re not helping her by giving her money whenever she pops up looking for help from her precious baby girl.” Regina knew her anger wasn’t all directed at Emma, she was angry with Cora as well and the pain she constantly brought Emma and their family.

“She’s not coming back.” Emma whispered so softly Regina couldn’t hear her. Emma hated this feeling. She hated how she was cowering in on herself because she was too drained and defeated to defend her own mother against her wife’s angry onslaught. She needed Regina to understand how much she was hurting and comfort her. She knew, deep in her heart, that she was never going to see her mother again. She had watched from the curb as she left and knew that death or jail would take Cora before Emma ever saw her again.

“Why? Why are you so blind?” Regina felt her ire rise again. The fact that Emma wouldn’t give her a specific amount meant she wouldn’t approve of what she had ‘donated’ to the con artist. She didn’t approve of Emma handing that witch a single penny. “Not everyone is worth saving, Emma!” Regina didn’t notice how violently Emma recoiled at that. “Not everyone can be saved!”

Emma’s eyes hardened, “How do you decide whose worth saving? Why do you feel you can be the one to decide who’s worth the time and effort?”

“This isn’t about everyone, this is just about your mother.”

“No.” Emma shook her head. “No, this isn’t just about my mother.”

Regina sighed, “Emma don’t start this again.” She was exasperated. She recognized exactly where her wife’s mind had headed.

“I didn’t start this Regina. I’m just the one that ends up getting hit low.”

“Emma, please…” Regina took two determined strides towards Emma. Emma took just as many away.

“You still see me as a charity case. Someone you saved, that you took in and clothed, fed… _fucked_.” Emma bit out the word as if it were the ugliest of words she’d ever spoken.

“You’re being crude and ridiculous.” They had been together for ten long years. They’d known each other for eleven. Whatever insecurities Emma still held as the runaway teenaged mother who Regina took in eleven years ago should be long gone. At least Regina thought they should.

“I’m not good enough for you. How could I be?” Emma asked as she gestured around their extravagant home. “An orphaned runaway teenage mother with a record.”

Regina shook her head, “You know I love you, Emma.”

Emma continued, as if she hadn’t heard Regina’s declaration. And maybe she hadn’t; too lost in her self-pity. “But your parents are right, aren’t they? You’re too good for me. You think I’m beneath you. Me and my son and my drug addict mother don’t fit into your perfect family mold. You’re the high society white Princess and I’m the evil con artist-temptress trying to seduce you for your money.” Emma felt tears falling down her cheeks but let them fall without attempting to wipe them away.

Regina continued her attempts to reach Emma but the emotional woman kept her distance. Regina thought it was ridiculous that she was circling her wife around her own office when all she wanted to do was comfort her. To make her see that she was being irrational. Regina had been lost the first time she’d seen Emma standing behind the kitchen island holding a meat cleaver as a weapon to protect herself and Henry from the ‘invasion’ into the house she had been squatting in.

“Emma, my parents accept our relationship. You know that. They love Henry.”

Emma snorted out a laugh, “Henry. Not me. Let’s be honest Regina. The only reason that you’re even with me is because of Henry.”

Regina felt like stomping her foot, hoping the sudden noise would cut through whatever depressive cloud had settled over Emma. “That’s not true! You know that’s not true! I love  ** _YOU_** , Emma. Not who you think you should be, but who you are. Stupidity and all.”

Emma laughed, and laughed, and laughed. The sound turning crazier and maniacal the longer it continued.

“Stupidity? I may be stupid but—”

“Enough!” Regina held up her hand, her voice raised authoritatively. “Enough. This isn’t about your self-wroth. You’re upset that I don’t like, nor trust, your mother but you cannot keep deflecting this conversation with woes of your insecurities. You cannot tell me that I think of you, or that my parents think of you, any way but lovingly.” Regina insisted, fed up of Emma’s continued relapse of self-hatred and inequality.

“ _You_  are my family. I  **hate**  when you’re in pain. I long to make you understand that you and Henry are the best things to ever happen to me, Emma.” If there was one look that could convey ten long years of love and devotion, Regina hoped this was it. She loved Emma with her whole heart and she knew Emma loved her in return. They were destined to be together. It was just, Emma needed a bit reminding every once and a while.

“I wish you could see that. That you could believe me, believe in what I’m saying in my ridiculous attempt to magically show you how unfounded your fears are.” Regina stared longingly at Emma as if the shine in her eyes could convey the emotions she was speaking of.

“Regina…” Emma felt her throat close as she looked into Regina’s eyes. The light in the den shone in them, brightening the brown of her eyes to look like swirling depths of inviting chocolate. 

“When you talk like this, how am I supposed to feel? Hmmm….?”

“Wha…what?” Emma asked, trying to recover from the warmth that had seeped into her chest at the adoration upon Regina’s face. There was a nagging voice in the back of her head that insisted she needed to stand her ground, that she couldn’t allow Regina to sweep her feet out from under her. It was getting louder and louder as the seconds ticked on.

“When you question your worth, question how I see you, you’re telling me that after all these years I still haven’t loved you how you need.”

Emma back pedaled, “Regina, that’s not—”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t that what you’re really saying? I make you feel inferior, unloved, unwanted? When you say that I’m only with you because of Henry you’re really just saying that I’m a liar when I tell you how much I love you. That the only reason I’m still here—with you—is because of Henry.”

“Well…” Emma cleared her throat.

Regina glared, “Well, what?”

“Are you?” Emma asked, unashamed of her question; at least partially.

She always wondered what Regina would have done if she hadn’t heard Henry’s cries coming from the living room the night they met. Emma had broken into Regina’s family home in Tallahassee. She was squatting in it because she hadn’t been able to find work or a place to stay with Henry. The house was fully stocked with food that would have just gone to waste and after a week without seeing anyone, Emma had gotten comfortable. Too comfortable.

Regina had been outraged when she’d found Emma in the kitchen, arming herself with a meat cleaver from  _her_  kitchen, ready to defend herself and Henry against the intruder. Emma thought it was another homeless person breaking in. How was she to know it was the rightful owner of the home coming to stay?

Regina had been about to call the cops on Emma before Henry’s cries from the living room had stopped the older woman short, as she realized why Emma had taken to squatting in her home. If it weren’t for Henry, Emma knew deep down that Regina would have called the cops. The only reason she and Regina were given a chance to develop feelings for each other was Henry.

Regina’s eyes widened and she physically recoiled, no longer interested in getting closer to Emma. The notion that Emma could actually ask her that question at all astounded her and left her heart aching inside her chest.

“Did you, just…?” Regina was in shock. That was the only way she could explain it. She couldn’t even finish her thought.

“Tell me why you’re really concerned, Regina. It’s not because of me. You’re most upset because I brought Henry to see Cora. Not that  ** _I…_** saw her.”

“Damn right I’m mad you brought our twelve year old son to see that toxic woman! And…”

“He’s my son! He deserved to say goodbye to her. She’s his family.” Emma knew Henry couldn’t remember the time Cora had left him at a festival all by himself when he was eight. He just thought she’d gone to get him ice cream and Emma and Regina found him nearly two hours later, no ice cream in hand. He loved Cora and Emma knew he’d never forgive her if he knew she’d gone to say goodbye—for the last time—and didn’t take him. Twelve years old or not Emma stood by her decision.

“And me and my parents aren’t family?” Regina questioned, confused how any of this made sense. How Emma could be so blind when it came to the woman who had only ever brought her grief and pain.

“No!” Regina froze. “No, you’re not!”

Emma felt the color drain from her face the moment after her outburst. She was just so upset. So angry. She didn’t mean what she’d just said. Regina was just as much Henry’s mother as she was. Mary Margaret and David were the best grandparents Emma could have ever hoped for, for Henry. They had been Emma’s family during a time she didn’t think she deserved anyone who loved her. They were her family. They just weren’t blood.

They didn’t know what it felt like to finally have a chance to know their parents. They didn’t know what it felt like to have a hole inside of them because they didn’t understand how their own mother could abandon them, or use them for her own gains without a care of how it would affect them. Emma did know that feeling and all she wanted was for it to go away so that she could finally just be happy with the life she had made for herself.   

“Regina…” Emma practically fell forward in her attempt to reach Regina. There was a void in Regina’s eyes that Emma hadn’t seen in more than ten years. “Regina, no, I didn’t…REGINA!” Emma yelled, her voice echoing through the room and into the hallway where it carried up the stairs and down the halls of the whole house.

The sound chased after her fleeing wife as Emma perused her. Emma ran into the foyer and only came to a stop when the door slamming closed echoed through the otherwise quiet house. Her breath short and face red, her eyes shifted between the stairs that led to where Henry was supposed to be sleeping and back to the closed door that led to her fleeing wife. Her body trembled as she placed the palm of her hand against the flat surface of the door and leaned on it. She couldn’t leave, not with Henry upstairs.

She cringed when she heard the sound of Regina’s car starting and the gravel kicking up as the car drove away.

Regina was gone.

 

-.-.-.-.- **One Year Later** -.-.-.-.-.-  
-.-.-.- **New York** -.-.-.-

“Henry!” There was no answer. “Henry, you’re going to be late!” Emma called into the apartment, busy at the stove making the last piece of French toast.

“I’m ready.” Henry slumped into the stool at the kitchen island. His head resting on the counter top almost immediately. His jaw cracked as he yawned. Emma heard him try and stifle a second yawn as she put the French toast on a plate and gave him the grape jelly to spread on it.

“How late?” Emma asked a disapproving look on her face as she watched him eat. She was still up from the night before and had already eaten. When Henry went to school she would get a few hours of sleep before getting some housework done before getting to work. She’d be here when Henry got back from school, help him with as much of his homework as she could, and then leave when Mrs. Fredrick came to look after him as she went to work.

Henry barely looked up from his plate as he inhaled his breakfast. With his mouth full he answered, “Wone…mawybe two.”

Emma sighed, “Is everything finished?” She couldn’t help if that was what time he had finally finished the homework now. She could just insist that he try and finish it earlier if possible. With the amount of work and the complex nature of the assignments she was lucky she could still help him at all.

“Yea, there’s just one question I left blank. I was going to ask Jimmy for help when we got to school.” Henry was quick to add when he saw the reprimand at the tip of Emma’s tongue.

“Alright…” Emma watched Henry take a long gulp of his milk. “Should I call Mrs—”

Henry shook his head, “No. I think I’m okay. It was just a hard lesson. I’ll get better at it as we go over it.”

Emma nodded, “Okay, if that changes I can call her.”

Henry nodded as he clapped down his empty glass and wiped away his milk mustache. “Thanks, Ma.” Henry grabbed his backpack and was by the main hallway before Emma could call him back into the kitchen.

“Where’s my kiss?” Her arms were crossed as she waited for him to come back.

Henry groaned dramatically as he walked back to Emma and bestowed the aforementioned kiss on her cheek. Without asking, Henry wrapped his arms around Emma and rested his head against her collarbone, just above her heart. Emma held him just as tightly and took comfort in his own need to hear her heartbreak to calm down and center himself just like when he was younger. Emma dropped her head to the top of Henry’s and breathed in his scent before kissing his scalp. She smiled as she felt him let go of her.

“Love you, kid.”

“Love you, too.” Henry kissed Emma’s cheek again before he ran out the door to meet up with Jimmy so they could walk to school together.

Emma followed him to the door and watched him till he turned the corner to get to Jimmy’s apartment. She closed the door when she heard Henry’s greeting bounce off the walls back to her. She closed and locked her door before heading into the kitchen to clean up the dishes left behind.

Emma was just drying her hands on a hand towel when the doorbell rang some ten-fifteen minutes later. Thinking it was Henry her steps were quick to reach the door and open it.

“Henry did you forget…Oh!” Emma closed the door a bit to help put it between her and the stranger standing on the other side of her door. He was wearing a lot of leather and eyeliner and smelled like the ocean at low tide. “Can I help you?” Emma asked, as she stared at the man who seemed to be looking at her as if she were a long lost friend. His smile of recognition and care broke across his face immediately.  

“Swan…” He breathed softly as he stared, a small rather dashing smile growing upon his face.

“Do I know you?” Emma was sure she didn’t. She would have remembered meeting this particular man.

“You don’t, but I know how to remind you.”

Emma knew something was fishy about this man that had nothing to do with his smell. As he leaned in closer to her and tried to press her lips against hers she reacted on instinct. She shoved her shoulder against his chest, knocking him away and thrusted up with her palm at his nose.

“The hell do you think you’re doing?” Emma slammed the door closed on the lunatic and locked it. Her eyes caught sight of something shining in his left hand just as she’d closed the door. “I have a gun and I swear to god if you so much as knock lightly on this door I’ll shoot you through the wood.” Emma promised, already moving to the intercom to call building security.

“Wait, Emma wait. I’m sorry. I thought…we need to talk. It’s important. It’s about your parents. Your mother sent me.”

Emma hung up the phone and grabbed the gun in the closet safe by the front door. Listening very carefully to what the crazy fish man behind the door had to say. Possible deadly weapon in his hand no match for her sharp shooting.

“What about my mother?” Emma wouldn’t put it past Cora to send a lunatic to her with requests or demands. The only problem with his story was that she hadn’t given Cora her forwarding address. Then again, this was Cora, if she wanted to get in touch with Emma—probably about more money—she would find her. She always found her and then left her life in shambles. Nothing more than a shadow of the once glorious structure her life had been before she stumbled back into it with her sob stories and promises of redemption and reconciliation.

“Can you open the…”

“Not gonna happen asshole. You got something to say to me you say it through the door.”

“She needs you. She sent me to get you and Henry and bring you to Storybrooke. She’s in trouble, danger. Grave danger.” Cora was always in grave danger. Mostly danger she caused for herself. “Swan? Swan are you there? Are you even listening to what I have to say?”

Emma felt her anger begin to boil under the surface. How dare Cora give out personal information about her and Henry to this man. For all she knew this was Cora’s drug dealer coming to her to get Cora’s debt paid off. No, whatever he had to say he could save it. She wasn’t interested. Let Cora deal with her own messes for once. Her mother had cost her the love of her life. She wasn’t going to cost her anything else.

Her back was turned to the door and she started to ignore his crazy ramblings. She picked up the phone and called security. She stood close enough to the door and listened as they dragged him away. The head of the security department checked on her to make sure she was okay before he too left and she was alone.

“Only in Manhattan right?” The security guard had joked lamely before leaving, but maybe she could somewhat agree with him. Only in Manhattan could she expect to open her door to see some wanna be pirate stinking like rotting ocean and fish at her door with nepharious intentions. 

Making her way to the window Emma looked at the crowds making their way around the city for a few minutes to calm herself down. With the adrenaline leaving her system she went into the bathroom, popped a few advil, and finished two glasses of water before she went into her private den and sat down at her computer.

There were three desk top screens in front of her on a desk which sat just off center to the left in the room. In front of the desk upon the wall hung a dry erase board with various pieces of paper both typed and handwritten and marker circling in a web graph. There were lines that connected one section to another but showed gaps in the design with large question marks and empty space to be filled in as the mystery was solved.

Along the outer edges of the web there were dates with question marks, city maps, and four word questions. Where did we live? When did this happen? When were we there? Where are her parents? Where did she work? What was our address? What was our telephone-number?

The closer to the center of the web there was less and less information. There was hardly any information on the board as it was. Emma didn’t even have pictures to provide for the identities of the people she remembered meeting through the years. She knew that many of the family photos had been lost but she couldn’t recall how exactly they were lost. Was it a fire? A flood? Did they get destroyed in a garage with mold or were they lost because of a rat or roach infestation? It was just one of the many unanswered questions on the board. Where are the pictures? How were they lost?

Emma followed the trail of useless information from the outer edges of the web towards the middle. She stopped at the bank account statements again. Sure that they were going to be the key to solving this puzzle. She stood up from her seat and walked to the board and fingered the statements. There were twelve, one for each month. The transfers were always made on the 28th of that month at 8:15am.

The money was transferred into the joint account that Emma shared with Regina. A parting gift from the wife who’d otherwise abandoned her and their son a year ago.

Emma knew the money was so she could provide for Henry. A gift but also an insult that insinuated she couldn’t provide for Henry without the assistance. It was very much like Regina to make a point even while being where ever it was she happened to be. It was all just one big last slap to the face from her ‘darling’ wife.

Emma couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t bitter and angry and hurt as well as guilty over this whole mess. It was a stupid fight over something that Emma was ashamed to admit had nothing to do with Regina. Not really.

What had driven Regina away wasn’t Cora or Emma’s persistent refusal to stop helping her birth mother. No, what had driven Regina away was Emma’s insecurities, and maybe a little of Regina’s as well. Regina had one greatest fear: losing Henry should their marriage fall apart. Regina feared that Emma would not only take herself out of Regina’s life but also take Henry. Regina feared that the courts would grant Emma sole custody if she ever sought it, because Emma was related to Henry by blood and she was not.

Emma never even considered taking Henry from Regina. It wasn’t a thought in her mind. She loved Regina and didn’t want to be without her. But she wasn’t good at loving someone. She made mistakes.

The mistake of telling Regina that she wasn’t Henry’s family was the biggest one of all.

She never thought that Regina would take her seriously. They were both angry and it was a fight. She didn’t expect to come home from picking Henry up from school to find Regina’s things were gone. It was like she had never been there to begin with. Any and all calls made to Regina’s phone went to voicemail 

Then when she made a missing person’s report the cops stopped looking for Regina because she wasn’t a missing person. They’d been in contact with her—Regina had answered their phone call—and their investigation stopped. They may have stopped but Emma wasn’t going to. At least not now. The first two months after Regina left Emma was furious. Livid that her wife would literally pick up and leave, not only leave her, but leave Henry as well. It didn’t make sense.

They were happy. They were good together.  
They had just had a fight. It was one measly fight.  
That cost her nearly everything she cared about.

When Emma tried calling Regina after the cops did the number had been disconnected. When Emma tried to call Regina’s parents they stopped answering and soon after their lines were disconnected and out of service. Supposedly they’d left the country for an extended vacation, or so the last message had stated before the service had been disconnected.

The harder Emma looked for Regina the foggier and crazier everything started to become. It was like waking up from a dream. The more she thought about the events of the dream the more she could remember them but she’d lose the finer details she didn’t focus on. And if for one moment she stopped focusing on that dream and the details within, she’d lose it all. That’s what was happening.  She was losing it all.

Henry asked her to stop looking for Regina. He was devastated by her disappearance and blamed Emma for quite a while. Their relationship was rocky and hard to maintain the first two months after Regina left. Emma was constantly trying to prove to Henry that she wasn’t the bad guy in this situation. She wasn’t the ominous evil he believed her to be and Regina wasn’t the knight in shining armor that was going to come back and save him from her wicked clutches.

It was towards the third month that Henry’s anger slowly shifted to Regina. He wasn’t as angry at Emma anymore, though a part of him still blamed her for Regina’s abandonment. He suddenly didn’t want anything to do with Regina anymore. He didn’t want to think about her or know where she was. He wanted her to stay away from them—or so he said. So he made Emma stop looking. He made her stop asking questions about the life they had together because the more she brought it up, the more upset he became.

Emma wondered sometimes if he became upset because he had trouble remembering their lives as well. But she didn’t push. He was in a fragile state and she wanted him to trust her, to believe in her. If he couldn’t believe in anything else she wanted him to believe in her. She needed him to.

So for the sake of her son she stopped asking him questions. She stopped bringing Regina up in front of him. But she couldn’t stop looking. She couldn’t stop asking herself the questions that needed to be answered and still, nine months later, were left unanswered.  

Emma was  _sure_  she could find Regina if she focused on the bank accounts.

The money had to be coming from somewhere. If she could just trace back the transactions then she could find Regina and apologize. She could yell and scream at the woman for abandoning her and Henry and beg her to come home. And maybe yell at her some more. She’d decide how she’d go about their conversation when she found her and they stood face to face.

For whatever cosmic reason it became harder and harder to remember in finer details the pieces of her life with Regina and Henry the more she thought about it. So she tried not to focus so much on the smaller details but on the larger ones.

The smaller details were the distraction, the illusionist’s assistant keeping the audiences eyes away from the real action, the real magic. So Emma focused on the larger picture and found the bank that was transferring the money into her account. Except that bank was merely a proxy for the off shore account the money was coming from.   

Emma’s finger flipped through the papers one last time before she moved away from them and allowed her eyes to slowly track towards the center of the web.

Where written in big bold black letters was a single word, a single name, and an unspoken promise that Emma intended to keep.

**Regina**

  **End Prologue**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes after chapter 10 are mine. :-)

**Chapter 1**

-.-.-.-.-.-

Emma smiled and put down her cup of coffee as she listened to Henry ramble on about his day at school and the science experiment his class was doing. It all seemed a bit complex compared to watching the evolutionary cycle of a caterpillar as it became a butterfly from when she was in school.

“Ma, are you even listening?” Henry complained, his voice cracking with a whine. Emma had to get used to the sound. His voice was beginning to show signs of changing.

It was impossible for Emma to realize that her little boy was 13 years old now and on his way to becoming a man. But he was still a boy and just as impatient as his mother was when she thought she was being ignored.

Emma was listening. She was just caught in a familiar memory of Regina standing behind Henry, her hand on his shoulders. Their eyes would meet as Henry talked about his day at school. She missed the way Regina’s eyes would shine with happiness as she listened to every word Henry had to say, enthralled by the boy’s retelling of his day.

“Don’t…” Henry begged as he watched Emma’s eyes brighten before they slowly darkened and creases appeared on her forehead. It was how he knew who Emma was thinking about. “She’s gone. She’s not worth thinking about.” There was a dark bitter tone to Henry’s voice that shouldn’t be as mature, as knowing, as his was at thirteen. 

Emma kicked herself for reminding them both of Regina’s abandonment. Emma, as a rule, tried not to say Regina’s name in front of Henry.  

All the work that Emma was doing to find Regina was done in secret. She didn’t want to burden Henry with it. He had asked her once to stop asking him questions. To stop looking for Regina and as much as she wanted to do as he asked of her, she couldn’t.

“Sorry, kid. I won’t.” Emma didn’t even try and defend Regina anymore. She had in the beginning. Now she just let Henry have his opinion of his mother. Lord knew Emma had her own opinion of Regina that was probably just as dark as Henry’s. 

Henry pushed around his food for a few more minutes before he gave up. Obviously he’d lost his appetite. “Can I be excused?”

Emma frowned; Henry was closing himself off to her like he did whenever Regina was brought up. “Sure….after you finish your vegetables.”

“Ma….” Henry complained.

“Don’t Ma, me. Finish your vegetables and then you can go.”

Henry grumbled as he picked up his fork and started shoveling the vegetables in his mouth. It didn’t even look like he was chewing.

“There. Now can I go?” He asked, showing Emma his empty plate.

“Yes, now you can. Mrs. Fredrick should be here soon. Is there anything you need help with before I head out?”

Henry shook his head, “No. I finished most of my homework during after school.”

“Okay. Finish the rest of it and you’ve got the okay to use the X-box for an hour or two before bed.”

Henry’s eyes lit up at the allowance of video games. Emma had kept up the strict schedule Regina had originally implemented when Henry started playing video games. It was supposed to be beneficial for healthy development or something. She never really had listened to the specifics. She’d just went along with Regina’s decision to limit his video game exposure especially when it came to the violent ones.

“Awesome! Thanks, Ma.” He willingly kissed her cheek this time before he raced off to his room to finish the remainder of his homework.

“What about your…” The sound of his door closing echoed through the apartment. “…dishes.” Shaking her head Emma picked up his dishes and went about washing the rest of them as well.

As she scrubbed at the plate in her hand, her mind wondered to Regina. Just like it always did. They used to do the dishes together. It was the one chore that Henry never had to do. There was something about the two of them washing the dishes together that always centered Emma. The way they worked seamlessly together, how their hands brushed together, how close they’d stand that she could feel Regina’s body heat, it was always so serene.

Emma missed that. She missed Regina so much sometimes that it physically hurt. Her heart would ache so painfully she would lose her breath and her eyes would tear up. Sometimes she let that pain turn into anger. Other times she let it engulf her in sorrow.  Most times she tried to ignore it and go on with her life.

Emma knew Regina. Regina would never leave Henry. She might leave Emma, but she would never leave their son. Henry was the apple of not merely Regina’s eye but her very soul.

Emma had a feeling in her gut, which continued to grow stronger and stronger, that Regina’s abandonment wasn’t as cut and dry as Henry and the police made it seem. That gut feeling had served her well in the past. She tended to regret not following her gut feelings.

She couldn’t even answer simple questions about her own life that should have been second nature to her. Like a phone number she was supposed to have for eight years. Why couldn’t she remember it? Why could she picture the house that they all lived in for those eight years down to the color of the tile floors, but she couldn’t remember the full address?

It wasn’t normal for someone to forget so much about their life. She had seen several specialists in New York for a few months that gave her no substantial answers. A few of the doctors she’d seen told her she was fine and it was probably a result of the emotional trauma of her wife leaving her. They had recommended a psychiatrist or two that she refused to see. At first 

Emma had been so sure that what she was dealing with was physical, that she was seriously ill, that she didn’t consider it could be rooted in the psychological realm. Surely there was something neurologically wrong with her. A disorder or a disease. Not her brain trying to protect her from the pain of Regina’s abandonment.

She had been abandoned before. She had lost people she cared about. She had been betrayed by people she trusted before. She didn’t need a shrink to tell her that she had abandonment issues.

The only other explanation the doctors she saw could come up with was early onset Alzheimer’s or dementia. Some of her symptoms did resembled early onset Alzheimer’s but there was no sign of the deterioration in any of her scans. No signs of a stroke having taken place to cause the long term memory loss. No tumors or cancer. Nothing.

So she took the name of a shrink and had an appointment every week to try and work through her issues. According to Dr. W. Ambroise Diggs, her psychiatrist, she was depressed and suffering from mild memory loss attributed to a severe case of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder of abandonment. Emma wasn’t exactly sure she believed she had the disorder, but she’d accept just about anything before she accepted Alzheimer’s before she was thirty.

Depression fit, as did a form of post-traumatic stress, if she went by the symptoms she’d seen on the internet were to be believed. She didn’t have much of an appetite, didn’t sleep regularly and when she did she was plagued with nightmares. She had bouts of anger and agitation for no reason. Memories associated with Regina were the ones most hazy. She had occasional panic attacks that were triggered most often when she didn’t know where Henry was. She needed to be doing something, staying active. She had trouble concentrating on anything without conscious effort—unless it was Regina.

She just didn’t understand how she could have PTSD when she hadn’t been put in a situation where her life was in danger. Losing Regina was emotionally traumatic but not enough to cause post-traumatic stress disorder. But she wasn’t a doctor. So what if she’d been in a car accident before, and she’d been in juvie, and was abused as a kid? How was it that she’d gone her whole life without suffering the effects of this disorder until her wife left her? She just didn’t exactly buy the diagnosis she’d been given.

Four months into therapy and she was still as hazy on what her shrink called ‘trigger memories’ as she was ten months ago. She still had nightmares. Nightmares about a shadowed figure that resembled Peter Pan’s shadow trying to take Henry; Regina poisoning Henry with Snow White’s apple, a dragon eating her, a dementor stealing her soul as Regina watched, a zombie horde coming to kill her led by Cora, a giant stepping on her, Cora stealing her heart right from her chest, Snow White killing Cora, Regina saving her and Henry as a bomb goes off, and an impish creature with scales like a crocodile stabbing her with a weird knife.

She was still always on alert. Her appetite hadn’t returned and she still had episodes where her heart felt like it was going to come right out of her chest when she thought about Regina.

Tonight wasn’t one of those painful nights. Her heart was warmed with the memories she could recall of her wife Memories so real that she could recall the scent of Regina’s perfume and the touch of her hand against her wrist. She could practically taste Regina’s lips against her own.  She could see the way Regina’s eyes shone with touches of moonlight that’d shine in from the kitchen window, the small upturn of her wife’s lips as they stared at each other.

“Ma. Ma….Maaaa!”

Emma shook away the visage of Regina and turned to see Henry staring at her, his face riddled with concern.

“What’s up, kid?” Emma asked

Henry swallowed and looked between Emma and the knife she was holding. Emma looked down at her hands and saw the butter knife in her hand and dropped it to the floor with a clatter. Her eyes looked Henry over immediately for injury. She took a step towards her son who hardly flinched at all.

Behind them the sink was almost overflowing with soap suds.

“I’m so sorry Henry. I’m so sorry.” Emma squeezed her eyes closed as she buried her head against Henry’s and held her son tightly to her.

“It’s okay. You were just washing it. You weren’t going to hurt me. You weren’t.” He reassured them both. He knew deep down that his mom would never hurt him. Never. But that didn’t mean her reaction to him calling her from her thoughts didn’t scare him a little. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He could feel how her body was trembling as he wrapped his arms around her.

“You okay?” He asked as he pulled himself away from her a little.

Henry knew that she was easily startled and could react violently if surprised. He had been the one to insist that she should see the shrink that all of the doctors were telling her was the best in the city. He was concerned for her. He knew that Regina leaving them had torn his mom apart. He just wanted her to be put back together again so that they could move on with their lives.

“I’m okay. I am. God, Henry, I’m so sorry…”

“It’s okay, Ma. It’s fine. You were just caught in thought.” Henry rubbed up and down Emma’s arms. “That’s all, right?”

“Right.” Emma nodded as she forced a nervous smile on her face. She took in several deep breaths to calm herself. “That’s all it was.”

Henry accepted her answer, but was opening his mouth to say something more when they both heard the doorbell.

“I’ll get it.” Emma volunteered, quick to escape the kitchen and Henry’s questioning eyes. As Emma got the door Henry quickly turned off the faucet and pulled the plug so the water would go down.

Emma didn’t like when she had an ‘episode’ in front of him. He didn’t need anything else weighing down on him. He didn’t need to worry about his safety around her. He never should have to worry about his safety while with her. Ever. Maybe it was time for an emergency session with Dr. Ambroise Diggs.

**End Chapter One**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The streets were crowded with people scurrying from one building to another as the rain poured down from the sky. The clouds ghosting over the high skyscrapers were heavy with the liquid and happy to let some fall on the masses.

Just like any other day in the Big Apple people didn’t know how to drive.

Emma forewent getting a cab or taking the bug out from the garage. It was easier to take the subway and walk to Dr. Diggs office. Drivers in the city were animals on a normal day. Add a little rain and they became dinosaurs looking for a fight or just to get where they were going faster than they probably should in such weather.

Walking with her jacket up about her neck and an umbrella over her head Emma made good time from the subway to her destination. She had a few hours before she would be needed at the office to fill out some paperwork on the jumper she’d brought in the week before.

When she was only two blocks away from Dr. Diggs office her phone rang. She reached for it and slowed her pace down a bit as she saw the red light up ahead. A few people bumped into her as they went around her but she kept her grip tight on her phone as she pressed it to her ear. As she did she felt like someone was watching her. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. She looked around her but didn’t see anyone focusing on her. She tried to shake it off.

“Swan Investigations, this is Emma speaking.”

“Hey there Birdie. So I think you owe me a dinner date for what I’ve got for you.”

Emma smirked as she heard Natasha, the NYPD tech genius she’d met a few months back while working on a case, attempt to flirt with her. “I think I should be the judge of that, don’t you?”

“No. No. This is totally worth dinner and a little kissing action on the couch too.”

Emma started to wonder just how good this information was going to be. “The couch? Maybe the door. I have a kid to think about catching us.”

“You and me both, Birdie. At least yours is out of diapers.”

Emma chuckled softly, “And it’s still the couch?”

“Oh yeah…Maybe even second base.”

Emma crossed the street and turned the corner on the correct block. “Jeeze, what is it you have for me Nat?”

“Aww, not even going to flirt back?”

“Maybe, you just have to warm me up a little with a clue as to how well I should be doing so.”

Nat laughed, “You got a pen and paper handy?”

“Give me a second?” Emma asked as she raced into the main building and put down her umbrella. She pulled a pad and pen out of her back pocket and flipped it open. “Ready.”

“Zero. Triple One. Zero. Three. Zero. Nine. Three.”

“Read back: Zero. One. One. One. Zero. Three. Zero. Nine. Three.”

“You got it.”

“Great…what is it?” Emma asked, feeling a little light hearted for the first time in the last two days.

“The routing number to the TD bank in Maine that the proxy is running in. It’s in a closed circuit so I should have the actual bank in the next day or so. But it’s defiantly where the off shore account is getting its money from.”

Emma felt her heart rate begin to pick up as she realized what the numbers in her hand meant. She was close. So very close to finding Regina she could practically taste it. Then what Nat said had her incredibly confused. “If it’s a closed circuit why are you having so much trouble getting in?”

Natasha laughed, “Honestly, Emma? I don’t know.” She sounded truly perplexed. “It’s like the bank that the money is coming from doesn’t exist. This is the first bank the money is transferred to from the original bank, but I can’t find the original. I’m at point B, but I can’t find where the hell point A is.” The exasperation in her friends voice was one she was very familiar with. She had been sporting the same tone for nearly twelve months now. “That’s why it’s going to take another day or two. I have to individually go through the banks—without getting caught mind you—to see where this ghost bank account is.”

“Thank you. I really do appreciate this Nat.” Emma hoped her sincerity came across. If this panned out she would actually kiss the other woman. Just the once so Natasha’s partner didn’t get angry or jealous.

“Yeah, yeah yeah. You still owe me that dinner. And I’m not talking a cheap one either. I want steak. A big one.”

“You don’t even like steak.” Emma laughed as she walked towards the elevator bay.

“Not the point Birdie. I’ll have chicken or roast duck or something as equally as expensive as big pieces of good steak.”

“You have a deal. I’ll even pay for Janice to take you to whichever restaurant you’d like and she can get something as equally as expensive while Henry and I babysit Evan.” Emma pressed the up button and watched as it lit up.

“See, Birdie. I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Emma pressed the button again and watched as the numbers started to descend as the elevator came down. “You mean besides my big blue eyes and ripped arms?”

Natasha scuffed into the phone, “Yeah, besides that.”

“Seriously, Nat. Thank you. Truly. I…I needed this.”

“I know. That’s why I’m not going to hold you to that babysitting offer until you come back from the road trip I’m sure you’ll be going on once I get you that bank and city.”

“You’re too good. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Yes. But it’s still nice to hear. Now let me go find that MIA wife of yours so you can make up and I can kick her ass.”

“Thanks again, Nat.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’ll be in touch soon. Take care, Birdie.”

“You to Nat. Give Janice and Evan my best.”

“Will do. Call you later, Birdie.”

The line went dead just as the elevator doors opened. Several people stepped off before Emma stepped on and pressed the tenth floor. Once inside Emma leaned her back against the wall of the elevator and released a heavy sigh. She was close. Closer than she had been in a very long time. So close in fact that she wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she actually did find Regina.

A large part of her wanted to kick Regina’s ass just as much as Natasha did. The other part of her wanted to hold onto the brunette and refuse to let go ever again. Truly it was all conflicting emotions when it came to Regina. How was someone supposed to react in a situation like this? She didn’t think they had a how to guide for reuniting with the spouse that abandoned you. If they did she was sure that she’d have read it already.

Looking down at the numbers she’d jotted down and Maine, she shook her head. What was Regina doing in Maine? Why was she there instead of with her and Henry? What was so important that she would stay away from them? Leave them for so long? Was it really just about their fight? Or was it something more?

Emma wished, just like she did every day, that she had the answers to all of her questions. Just one answer would be nice. She was drowning in a sea of unanswerable questions and needed one, just one good answer to a question she had to keep her afloat as she sought out the rest. Just one good answer was all she was asking for. It just seemed like no one was ever listening to her pleas.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened on her floor. She stepped off and made her way towards Dr. Diggs’ office. The receptionist, Jennifer, smiled at her as she stepped into the waiting room.

“Hey, Emma. He’s expecting you. You can go right in.”

“Thanks.” Emma walked right to the sound proof room, bypassing all the chairs in the empty waiting room.

“Ah, Emma. I was wondering if the weather would keep you.” Dr. Diggs stood up from his seat behind a small desk in the right corner of the room. Closer to the door were three arm chairs, and a love seat surrounding a coffee table. The large book case was filled with large texts that Emma would never read. The room was comfortable. The soft brown of the furniture a nice offset to the darker paint along the walls.

“It’s only a little rain, Dr. Diggs. I’m not like those amateurs out there. It’s not going to stop me short when I have somewhere to be.” After coming in nearly once every week for two months, Emma made herself comfortable on the love seat without being asked to take a seat. She dropped her stuff at her feet and leaned back into the corner part of the couch, closest to the corner of the room itself. She might be comfortable enough to make herself ‘at home’ but she wasn’t going to put herself at any disadvantage.

“What have I said about calling me Dr. Diggs?” He asked as he took his seat in the arm chair closest to the love seat. When they started their sessions he would sit in the one farthest away from Emma, but after nearly four months he had moved to the seat closest to her. It was a progression that he took pride in, even if Emma really didn’t see what the big significance was.

“Not to do it?” Emma asked, knowing that he was constantly trying to get her to call him by his first name, something about how it would make her feel more comfortable with him if she didn’t put doctor in front of his last name.

“Right. So, what do you say? You call me Walsh at least once today? We’ll work on it more for other sessions.”

Emma shrugged, “Whatever you say Doc.”

Walsh sighed, seemingly hoping she’d have called him Walsh right away. And maybe she would have if she didn’t enjoy busting his chops so much. He could be very uptight. Even worse than she was when she first started coming to him. Besides, she didn’t feel comfortable calling him by his first name. He was her doctor and she felt his sudden wish for her to call him by his name was off setting to the professional relationship they had with each other. She wasn’t coming to talk to a friend about her problems. She was here to talk to a doctor who could help her.

She wasn’t sure why but he had begun to make her feel a little uneasy the last few sessions they had, which is why she’d cancelled her last two appointments. The only reason she was here at all now was because she felt like it was a bad idea to skip the appointments with the last episode nearly having her holding a knife to her son. She’d considered finding another shrink, but knew that if she stopped coming here she might stop all together.

“So, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen you…” He left the statement hanging in the air, hoping Emma would fill in the blanks.

“Work got really busy. Had a case that took up most of my free time. Just finished it a few days ago.”

“I understand that work can be very consuming.” There was a but hanging at the end of that sentence, whether he said it aloud or not.

“Yes, it can.”

Dr. Diggs nodded his head as he scribbled something down on his notepad before meeting Emma’s eyes again. “What happened to cause you to seek an earlier appointment?”

“Aww, no pleasantries today, Doc?”

“I could, but we both know that it is a waste of your time. And thus mine.”

Emma wasn’t completely surprised with his tone of voice. It was darker than usual but the tone wasn’t completely foreign to Emma. He’d been this edgy the last two times she’d seen him. It was part of the reason she had become uncomfortable with him.

Emma grit her teeth before finally admitting, “I had an episode at home.”

“What kind of episode?”

“I spaced out for an unknown amount of time.”

“Another black out?”

“No. No.” Emma shook her head. “I haven’t had one of those since the first one last month.” Emma didn’t know what had caused it. She was fine. She was just out food shopping when she’d suddenly blacked out. She’d finished shopping and gotten herself home without even realizing it. There was only an hour or so of missing time, but it was still startling to not recall how she’d gotten home or even finished grocery shopping.

“Okay, so what happened this time?”

“I was doing the dishes and I guess I just got lost in thought.” Emma swallowed. “About Regina. And the next thing I know Henry’s calling out to me and I’m holding a knife and…it scared me.”

“A knife?”

“Yeah, I had been washing the dishes and I guess I just grabbed it. It was a butter knife but it’s not the point you know? What if it wasn’t a butter knife? What if it had been a steak knife? What if Henry had been closer when I’d reacted to hearing his voice?”

“Emma…Emma, try and keep calm. Those are all what ifs. They didn’t happen. They didn’t. And you’re here now to make sure that if there is a next time it won’t happen. You didn’t hurt your son.”

“But I could have!” Emma insisted, her blood pressure rising at just the thought of it.

“But you didn’t.” Walsh stressed. “Did you step towards him when you turned?”

“What? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Humor me, Emma. Did you step closer to him?”

“No. I just. I just turned around.”

“With the butter knife you just so happened to have in hand. Not the knife you grabbed from a holder or drawer, yes?”

“Right…”

“It was an involuntary action. One anyone could have done when coming back to reality after day dreaming.”

“But…”

“It’s just different for you because of your condition. It doesn’t make your reactions any more ordinary in situations like that. It just means you scrutinize it differently than others chalking it up to an accident.”

Emma sighed. She needed to hear that. She knew it was something she needed to worry about and work on but she was relieved that her doctor didn’t seem as concerned with the accident.

“It scared us both.”

“Of course. It’d scare anyone. But Henry. He hasn’t withdrawn from you because of it has he?”

“No.” Emma shook her head, “The opposite actually. He’s gotten closer to me. He’s double checking things to make sure I’m okay. He’s worried.”

“Well, we’ll just have to find a way to make him less worried.” Dr. Diggs smiled what he thought was a charming smile. Emma used to think it was but now it made parts of her skin crawl.

Emma laughed awkwardly, “That would be nice.”

“You mentioned you were thinking of Regina when you spaced out. Anything specific? Any memories resurface?”

Emma watched the way that Dr. Diggs shifted a little in his seat as he asked the question, his interest obviously keen on what her response would be. “Yes, but nothing specific that I’d forgotten. Just us washing dishes together and talking.”

“So no chest pain with the memory?”

“No. Nothing. It was nice.” Emma felt herself smile softly. “Just remembering the little things, you know? Just everyday things. No need to worry about everything else I can’t remember. It was simple. The way she smiled or laughed. The way her skin felt when we brushed hands together. The way her eyes looked in the lighting…” Emma trailed off as she pictured everything she’d mentioned once again. She was aware of it this time and pulled herself from the memories quickly. When she came out of it Walsh was writing a few things down on his notepad. “Can I ask you a question, Doc?”

Walsh finished jotting down his notes before meeting Emma’s eyes. “Of course.”

“Do you think that I’d get better if I were to confront the object of my trauma?” Emma asked as she picked at her nails. Her eyes watching Dr. Diggs’ reaction very closely. There was a distinct change in him. He shifted in his seat and turned towards her just the slightest bit more. His interest in her suddenly more intense.

“Confronting the object of the trauma has been shown to help, yes.” It looked as if he wanted to say more but kept himself from saying anything.

Emma cracked her jaw a bit as she thought about his answer and the piece of paper in her pocket that felt like it was burning through the cloth.

“So if I say, confront Regina, it wouldn’t make my condition worse?”

Walsh shifted in his seat again and moved his note pad from one knee to the other. “It’s hard to say, Emma. With each case the reactions can vary. In some cases being exposed to the cause of the condition has been detrimental.”

Emma nodded her head once as her eyes tracked down to the carpet. The last thing she needed was for her condition to worsen. She was coming here because she wanted her memories to comeback. She didn’t want to lose more of them.

“Specifically with cases like yours if the object or the person that personifies the condition were to reject the person suffering from the condition, they could see a relapse in their progress or worsen.” Walsh put the pad aside and leaned forward and waited for Emma to meet his eyes. It took Emma only a few moments before she looked at him. “That isn’t to say that your condition would worsen, Emma. It could be helpful to confront, Regina”

“But there is the possibility that it could make things worse?” Walsh nodded.

Emma sighed heavily and ran both of her hands through her hair. Was she willing to chance that? Was she willing to find Regina and have the woman she loved reject her not only causing emotional pain but lasting physical pain as well.

“Have you had progress on finding, Regina?” Walsh asked, the muscle above his eye twitching twice. Emma didn’t pay any attention to him. She was too busy staring at the coffee table between them like it held all the answers she was seeking.

She’d lose even more of her memories. She’d have more violent reactions and find herself unable to concentrate on anything. The panic attacks would get worse. She wouldn’t get the two or three hours of sleep she was lucky to get a night without nightmares. She’d lose more weight and be unable to defend herself properly while on a case. She’d get herself hurt, maybe even killed and leave Henry an orphan like she’d been, all because she tempted fate.

No. No! Emma shook her head violently from side to side twice. Regina wouldn’t reject her again. She’d be happy to see her. They could work out their problems and Emma could finally figure out why this was all so crazy. Why Regina had left and ruined their happy ending together. She’d finally have the last few puzzle pieces that were missing and everything would get better. She would get better. She would get better with or without Regina in her life. But she would get her answers. She deserved at least that much.

Emma’s vision cleared and she became alert of her surroundings again and saw the expectant way that Dr. Diggs was looking at her. “I’m sorry, did you say something, Doc?”

Walsh swallowed as his hands fisted against his knees, “Yes, I asked if you had any progress finding Regina.”

“There uhm, yeah. There’s been some progress. I asked a friend of mine for some help. She’s having some trouble now, which isn’t anything new, but she’s close. I’m close to finding her. I’m just waiting on the name of the city.” Emma chuckled to herself, “If it’d mean getting better I’d just about be ready to go door to door in the whole state of Maine.” Emma smirked, expecting to see some kind of similar expression upon Dr. Diggs’ face, but he wasn’t as amused with her joke as she was. In fact he looked pale. His skin around his neck was sweating as was the palms of his hands if she went by the wet trail along his pants.

“Doc…Doc you okay?” Emma asked as the hairs on the back of her neck rose and she felt a cold sweat start to form over her own body. She was suddenly aware of every muscle in her body and each heartbeat and breath she took.

“Fine. Just a little warm in here, don’t you think?” He asked as he stood up from his seat, pulling at the collar of his shirt to air himself out. He ran his hand haphazardly through his hair spiking it instead of leaving it gelled back as he made his way to his desk.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Emma said her tone as unbelieving as she was of his excuse. She quickly looked at the door and took note of where her things were and was already going over whether or not she could afford to just leave them here if she were to make a run for the exit.

“You know, I’m happy for you. I really am. It’s been hard for you these last few months not knowing where Regina has been. And now that you’re so close I understand how exciting this must be for you.” Dr. Diggs had his back turned to Emma as she slowly stood up from her seat and took one step towards the door. “There’s just one problem.” Walsh moved one of the folders on his desk to the side and pressed down on the button hidden beneath.

Emma was just about to grab the door knob when she heard the sudden hissing sound of the room locking down. Emma grabbed the handle and tried to open the door but the wood sunk in a little deeper to the floor as metal clamps grabbed at it from the bottom and top making it impossible for her to successfully break it down. Not that she didn’t try.

Behind Emma, Dr. Diggs slowly turned around and took off the spectacles that Emma thought had always looked rather funny on the young man. He put them on the desk and watched Emma attempt to escape the room. “I can’t have you finding Regina just yet.”

Emma jammed her shoulder against the door a few times trying to find a weak spot but it didn’t even budge. It just left her shoulder bruised and her heart racing like a race horse in her chest. Panting, feeling like a trapped animal she turned and faced Dr. Diggs.

“You, you can’t have me finding Regina?” Emma asked, her brain firing off more questions than she could voice at once.

“I’m afraid not.” Walsh almost seemed truly sad about his inability to allow Emma to find her.

“So,” Emma looked around the room for a weapon of some kind, “You know…you’ve known where she is.” What did that mean? How could he have known where Regina was all this time? How long had he known? Why wouldn’t he tell her? Why had he locked her in like this? What was he planning?

“Yes, I have.” Walsh walked around his desk and while he was there Emma went back to the couch where she’d left her umbrella and extended it, ready to use it as a bat if she had to. The only other appropriate weapon she saw was a letter opener on the desk, but if she went for that she’d never reach it before Dr. Diggs did.

“For how long?” Emma asked as she slowly began circling towards Walsh as he began moving away from the desk and her sudden perusal, his own weapon hidden behind his back. He fingered it as he slowly smiled at Emma.

“Since last year. From the moment she left you.”

Last year? Last year?! How could he have known since last year that didn’t make any sense! He didn’t even know who they were before she came to him. At least that’s what she had believed. Emma shook her head to clear away fuzzy memories that were clouding her mind. The current one filtering into her mind was a conversation she had with Regina where the woman was crying and promising her a happy ending for her and Henry.

“How could you know? You didn’t know us.” Groaning, Emma started to move away from Dr. Diggs as it suddenly felt like her head was about to split clear in half as that memory was being super imposed over the fight that she and Regina had the night she left.

“No. Not personally. But I knew of you, Savoir. And what you were capable of. So it came as a great surprise to me to find you were nothing but a failure. A fraud. How sad it’ll be when she realizes you’re just as useless as I’ve come to realize. You’re no Savior. You’re a pathetic whiny bitch. And you’ve been nothing but a waste of my time. But don’t worry. I’m done wasting my time on you.”

Fraud. Failure. Useless. Savoir.

Emma hissed as she felt her eyes start to blink rapidly against the pain. There was a fight between Regina and her in the middle of a forest of some kind where Regina accused her of being nothing, of being a horrible Savoir for being unable to save their son. And again in what looked like an office. She didn’t even remember being in a situation that she’d be in a forest with Regina or have to save Henry. The images were trying to overlay themselves over the fight she had with Regina about sending Henry to a private or public middle school a few months before she’d left them.

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. And what the hell was Dr. Diggs trying to say? What the hell was wrong with him?

“Fuck…” Emma pushed the palm of her hand roughly against the side of her head, wanting to use the other to put opposite pressure on the other side to make the pain go away.

Walsh saw Emma’s predicament and used it to his advantage. He advanced on the blonde as quickly as he could, jumping over the arm chair that sat between them easily, practically flying over it.

Emma shook away the pain and heard a screech type noise that sounded like an animal. She looked up just in time to see Dr. Diggs coming towards her with a needle in his hand. She lifted the umbrella and hit the man’s hand knocking the needle out of his hand but it didn’t stop his momentum. He fell and tackled into Emma pushing them both down to the ground. Emma struggled to keep Walsh’s hands away from her neck as his body weight held her down and she tried to wiggle free.

“You’re crazy!” Emma accused as she tried to get enough room to switch their positions.

She couldn’t let him keep her on the bottom. She needed to get out from under him before he got a grip of her. His nails were sharp. Sharp enough that as they got close enough to her they easily cut into her skin.

Emma groaned in her effort to get him off of her. He was a small man. He may have some muscle but Emma had gotten into similar situations with men twice his size and she could get out from underneath their weight. It was almost like he weighed a lot more than he appeared, or he just had super strength.

She finally got enough leverage with her shoulders and foot and pushed hard enough to roll them. She felt hope settle in her chest as she found herself atop him but he went with the momentum of her roll and kept her beneath him.

Their legs hit against the furniture, surely making noise that should alert Jennifer out front, but then again if the door locking hadn’t alerted her Emma didn’t know what would. And for all she knew that receptionist could be working with this psycho so she didn’t hold out hope of getting any help from her. Instead she focused on controlling her breathing, getting out of this room, and away from this building. Hell, maybe even this city.

Walsh started laughing as his hands got closer to her neck, making it hard for her to hold the angle she needed to keep them back. The noise of his laugh sounded almost like a hyena and her eyes tracked to his face and it’s almost manic expression.

Emma lost her hold on his hands and felt them grab at her neck and immediately start to squeeze. Her legs kicked and she used the side of her hand to hit against his shoulder at a pressure point that should have made him at least flinch. It did nothing. He just kept smiling down at her as he pressed against her trachea. She could do nothing more than watch as she continued to struggle beneath his extraordinary weight for someone as svelte as him, as his teeth got longer and sharper while his eyes flashed a bright orange.

Emma’s heart stopped for a second at the horrific sight. What. The. Fuck.

Emma knew she was panicking. She was about to lose all control and air she had if she didn’t get this man…beast…whatever the fuck he was, off of her.

“Ghaet off me!” Emma screamed and was surprised as the lights in the room started to brighten to an almost blinding brightness around them. It distracted Walsh and caused him to flinch, and lean his weight just enough off of Emma for her to act.

Lifting her knee up she connected with Walsh’s crotch and used every bit of strength she had to push him off of her. With his distraction she did it. And this time she didn’t attempt to get on top of him. She tried to jump up off the floor and run. Just as she was to her knees, Walsh caught her around the ankle and pulled her back down. Whatever air she had regained now that he wasn’t holding her neck was lost as she fell on her stomach with a rough thump.

The light around the room was still too bright to see anything clearly. It was like a pulse, just as bright as it had been before, leaving them both blind.

Emma tried to crawl away from Walsh but he kept pulling on her ankle, his grip nearly crushing. She screamed and turned on her side enough that she could lift her other leg and kicked out at him. Her boot connected with his shoulder the first time.

“You really are weak, Savoir. I don’t know why Zelena was so worried about you. A little light show? Is that all you’ve got?” He started cackling again as his grip on Emma’s ankle tightened and Emma feared the bone would break if any more pressure was put on it.

Emma grit her teeth together at the pain and the insult. The light bulbs around them had enough of the strain and started popping. As they cracked around them and she could start seeing things that weren’t streams of white light she reared her leg back and slammed it forward, this time connecting with his face. She smirked a little on the inside as she felt the bone of his nose break under the heel of her boot.

Take that you creep, Emma thought as she jumped up on her good foot, the ankle he’d grabbed throbbing with pain. She fumbled over the coffee table, still unable to see more than blurry shadows, her vision almost useless. Cursing she heard Walsh groaning in pain and spitting up what she hoped was blood.

Working her way from the coffee table to Walsh’s desk as fast as she could she found the button that he had pressed to lock them in the office and was already running for the door before it had finished unlocking itself.

She heard a noise behind her as she made it to the door and turned around just in time to see Walsh reaching for her. She grabbed one of his arms and bent it in on itself, used his momentum to slam him into the wall, stepped back and used the heel of her boot again to kick the inside of his knee, effectively flooring him. Once he was on his knees he started to turn towards her and she was quick to use her elbow to slam into his cheek close to his nose, knocking him over with the pain.

The hiss of the door was nothing but a whisper of noise against the sound of Emma’s pounding heart as she opened the door, throwing it open as hard as she could and slamming it into Dr. Diggs’ hand that was trying to reach for her. She didn’t even cringe when she heard his yowl of pain as she broke his hand.

Jennifer was in front of the door looking panicked as she held the phone up to her ear. “Oh Jesus, Emma are you okay? When Walsh hit the panic button and wouldn’t answer his phone I just…my god. What happened to you?” Jennifer’s eyes zeroed in on Emma’s neck. Emma didn’t even bother to touch at it. She felt the burn of the bloody scratches that Dr. Diggs had given her.

“Is that the cops?” Emma asked, out of breath.

“Yeah, yes it is, Emma, what did he do?” Jennifer looked near tears.

“He tried to kill me.” Emma stated as she made her way to the door.

Jennifer called out for her to wait that help was on the way, but she didn’t bother waiting. She just ran down the hallway and to the stairs. She’d run the ten flights. She wasn’t waiting for an elevator. She couldn’t stand still. And she wasn’t waiting for the cops.

Her doctor had just tried to kill her. Her doctor had just nearly turned in to some kind of monster that she’d only ever seen in the movies. Her doctor wasn’t human. That was the only way to explain what had just happened. He wasn’t human. And he knew about Regina. Said he knew where Regina was; had known from the beginning.

How could he have known? He even said that he’d never met them before but knew of them. That meant something. He knew of them, never met them, but knew where Regina was and where to find Emma to what? To keep her from finding Regina? To distract her with fake doctor’s appointments and diagnoses that weren’t even accurate?!

Emma rounded the 7th floor and kept running down the stairs, her mind turning its wheels as her blood raced by her ears making the thumps of her boots sound like a distant echo.

There was a term for someone like him. What was it? Think Emma, think. What was the term for a person that was placed somewhere to watch someone else. A a…plant! He was a plant. Someone had planted him in her life to watch her to see what her progress was in finding Regina. Damn it! She knew this whole situation wasn’t right. She knew that Regina wouldn’t stay away from her and Henry. Never Henry.

God she had let herself believe the worst and now Regina was god knew where, and with who, being kept away from them and she was being spied on and distracted from what her mission should have been from the very beginning.

Fourth floor. She was almost out.

She needed to get back to Henry and she needed to pack them up and leave. They needed to get out of town for a while. She still had some contacts in Boston that she could call up for a favor, to use a safe house. She was sure if she explained what had happened they’d understand. Right? Who wouldn’t believe her when she told them that her doctor was a plant put in her life to keep her from focusing 100% on finding her missing wife and said plant just so happened not to be human? It was believable wasn’t it?

Emma felt like she was about to jump somewhat unwillingly head first off the deep end.

Second Floor.

Focus. She had to focus. He said something. He mentioned a name before. He worked for someone specific. What…what was their name? What had he said? It started with a Z. Z something or other. Damn it!

Emma ran passed building security as they tried to stop her. Probably alerted by Jennifer or the police. But for all Emma knew the police weren’t coming and everyone here that she’d ever met was in on this conspiracy and as unhuman as Dr. Diggs.

She slammed the door open and made it out onto the street in seconds. The weather hadn’t changed. If anything it had gotten worse. The sky was a darker grey than it had been before and there was lightning flashing across the sky. The rain was heavier and the wind stronger making her heavy footfalls splash up water as she went.

Emma looked up at the sky and listened as it rumbled with thunder. Wiping away the rain water from her forehead as the water drenched her leather jacket she looked across the street. There, standing by the parking meter was the pirate from the other day. Emma felt her heart plummet at the sight of him. Could she not get a break?

Henry. She needed to get to Henry and she needed to get the hell out of this city and now!

Stepping off the curb Emma saw a cab coming down the block and tried to wave it down. Just as she lifted her hand in the air above her she heard glass breaking. Looking up she saw some large creature jump out of a window ten stories up.

It seemed to take place in slow motion. The way the glass exploded out from the building and slowly started to fall towards the ground. The way the creature snapped its wings out at attention and glided across the air and its angular face turned and stared right at her.

The eyes were a strange glowing orange but really that wasn’t the strangest part of the whole scene. Not by a long shot.

“Swan! Look out!” Emma heard someone yell at her but couldn’t take her eyes off of the flying monkey that was coming right at her. It was an actual flying monkey. Like from the freaking Wizard of Oz.

This had to be the worst nightmare she’d ever had. It seemed so real. Her ankle and knee were aching and she could feel the whip of the rain against the cuts on her neck. The glass started to scatter down around her. Shards coming right at her. She didn’t even get a chance to cover herself from the glass before she felt someone slam against her side, pushing her to the ground. She watched, in shock, as the wanna be pirate she’d had escorted out of her building pulled out a pistol and shot at the flying monkey that was three feet away from them. The sound of the gun being fired was drowned out by the thunder that shook the very ground Emma was on.

Emma felt her body begin to shake with shock as she stared without blinking at the man offering her his….hook?

Emma felt sick to her stomach. The flying monkey was gone. Flying away with its wound, if the blood dripping down on the ground covered in glass was anything to go by. The rain slowly diluting the blood as Emma watched.

“Come on Swan. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

Emma blinked twice as she turned to look at the man in front of her more closely. There was something about the way he was standing above her that prickled at the back of her head. As if there was a memory that existed of him standing offering his hand to her during a storm somewhere in her mind.

“Who are you?” Emma asked, out of breath.

“Emma, we’ve drawn a crowd. I promise I will answer all of your questions. But we must leave. Now.”

Questions. Emma had so many questions and if he could answer half of them she’d probably give him whatever Cora owed him and then some.

“My son, we have to get…”

“We’ll get the lad. But we have to hurry. That creature may go looking for him as well.”

Emma’s face hardened at the thought of that living nightmare going after her son. “The hell he will.”

Hook quirked a smile at the determination that reset itself in Emma’s shoulders at the notion of someone hurting her son. “Good to have you back, Swan.”

Emma looked at the man beside her curiously. He seemed so familiar to her suddenly and yet she didn’t even know his name but he had promised her answers. And after looking for answers for nearly 12 months she was ready to get them. No matter where they came from. Especially after the day she was having.

Emma watched him offer his actual hand and she reached out slowly and took it. He pulled her up to her feet and gestured for her to follow him. She did so without looking back.

**End Chapter 2**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Ma? Ma, what’s going on?” Henry asked as he came into the school office, his jacket on and his backpack snug on his back. “Ma?” Henry asked again as Emma ignored his question and simply touched his shoulder and started to lead him away from the main office. She waved to the secretary who frowned and waved back as she watched them leave.

When they were in the hallway Henry tried again to get his mom to talk to him. “Ma? Is everything okay?” He noticed the scratches and the bruising along Emma’s neck and the way she was favoring her left leg over her right. “What happened?!”

He knew that sometimes her job could be dangerous but the worst he’d ever seen was her come back with a bruise on her cheek and a sprained wrist. He also knew that she wasn’t even at work yet. She had been going to see Dr. Diggs.

“MA!” Henry yelled as soon as they were outside and she was trying to lead him into her yellow Volkswagen. She didn’t even bother putting up an umbrella and he was struggling to keep up with her fast pace that he couldn’t either.

Emma stopped walking to the car and looked around them, and up at the sky before meeting Henrys eyes.

“I will explain everything once we are in the car. The man in it is…he’s a witness on something I’m working on. He, he helped me. Please, Henry.” Emma touched both of Henry’s shoulders and focused him as he looked around her at the man sitting in the front passenger seat. “Please get in the car.” Emma tried to hold his eyes again but she couldn’t help but look up at the sky around them. Weary of the noise the storm was making and how it could mask the sound of any creature that might be coming at them.

Henry tried to see what it was that his mom was looking for up in the sky but just saw the clouds. “Ohkay.” He nodded his head once and got in the car when she opened the back door for him. She slammed it closed and ran over to get in the front.

As Henry settled into his seat he noticed that the back of the car was filled with bags of their stuff. Three of his mom’s duffle bags were stacked on the floor and one of their luggage bags was on top of them. He even saw the metal of his mom’s lock box on the floor underneath the bags.

His eyes tracked to his mom’s hip and noticed the impression of her gun on her waist by her stomach. “Mom…who is this guy? And what happened to you? Who did that to your neck?”

“He’s…” Emma chanced a look at the man next to her, “I don’t really know Henry.”

“Killian Jones, at your service, lad.” Hook introduced himself.

Emma had made it clear she didn’t want him saying anything to her as she packed hers and Henry’s things. He had tried to insist that they didn’t have the time that the good doctor knew where she lived, but she had taken the time to do so anyway. She’d also grabbed a bunch of papers off the wall in her office and put them in a folder that she’d put away in her lock box where she’d taken out a handgun and two clips. One of which she’d loaded her gun with and put the other in her jacket pocket.

It had taken her exactly twenty minutes and while she was packing she had called Henry’s school and told them that she was coming to take him out of class and that he wouldn’t be returning this quarter. That there was a family emergency that required they leave the state and she would contact them about where to send Henry’s files at a later date.

Hook had been impressed with how quickly Emma had been able to get her things and Henry’s things and shove two of the bags into his arms before they left the apartment. It seemed she was good at disappearing. A trait from her former life that re-immerged itself in actions alone if not thought.

It was only as they were driving to pick up Henry that Emma had allowed him to tell her everything he knew. Which wasn’t as much as he would have liked to tell her since she didn’t remember her real life. The memory potion that he had been given still sat in his lap untouched. She said she wasn’t about to take anything from a stranger, especially something that glowed blue when she looked at it.

Emma was just getting used to the idea that her doctor was actually a flying monkey that wanted to kill her, or just stop her from getting to Regina. Either way what she did know was that he was there to help her. That he had been sent by friends of hers—because she didn’t take well to the notion of having two parents—that would help protect her from the creatures she now knew existed. He tried to tell her that the elixir he had with him would make everything clear for her but after the day she’d had, he understood she wasn’t willing to trust him. Not just yet.

“Like Captain Hook? That Killian Jones?”

Hook turned to look at Henry more fully, looking him over to see if the boy remembered more than his mother. When he was just staring at him and his hook like he was crazy he realized he was making fun of him. Settling back into his seat he sighed, “Yes.”

Emma stared at Killian for a moment before focusing back on the road.

“Whatever,” Henry mumbled the word freak under his breath before he focused back on his mom. “Why is all our stuff packed? Where are we going?”

“We’re leaving town for a while. The uhm, destination at the moment. I’m not sure. I was planning to call a few friends of mine in Boston to get us a place to stay for the night. When we get there we can decide where it is we’re going. But we can’t stay here. Not anymore.”

“What about school?” Henry asked.

“It can wait. I already told them that we were leaving because of a family emergency.”

“But…” Henry whined, not understanding what was going on and not liking the idea of them just picking up and leaving. This was their home.

“Henry…I was attacked.” Emma knew that giving him that information would stop whatever complaints he was about to issue.

Henry’s eyes darkened at the idea of someone hurting his mom, “By who?”

“Dr. Diggs.” Emma turned the car and got them onto the bridge. Careful to keep her eyes peeled on the sky for the ‘man’ she’d just mentioned.

“What?’ But…why would he attack you? He’s your doctor.”

“No, lad I’m afraid he isn’t a doctor. He was sent here to New York to keep an eye on your mother. Make sure she didn’t leave.”

“But…that doesn’t. I don’t understand.” Henry sat back heavily in his seat.

“I don’t either, Henry. I really don’t. But he did attack me. And he…” Emma felt her throat close up a little as she recalled how his eyes had glowed and his teeth had gotten longer and sharper. How he turned into a flying monkey and came towards her in the middle of the air.

“And he…” Henry pushed, feeling slightly sick to his stomach at the implications that there was an ‘and’ to follow that statement.

“He’s not exactly a nice man.” Emma sighed with relief when they made it off the bridge. Focusing on the traffic ahead of her. “And he’s known this whole time where your mom is. He’s tried to keep us from finding her.”

Henry’s eyes widened and he got quiet. His mind racing at the notion that Dr. Diggs had known where his mom was and hadn’t told Emma. Why would he do that? Why would he attack Emma to begin with? He’d seemed like a nice enough guy the few times Henry had gone to a session with Emma.

“Where is she?” Henry tried to keep his enthusiasm down but this was different. This wasn’t hypothetical anymore. It wasn’t Emma asking him questions about things that gave him a headache to think about. It was Emma telling him that someone knew exactly where his mom was. It was Emma telling him that his mom might be in danger because someone was trying to keep them from finding her.

He felt guilt swim through him. How could he have asked his mom to stop looking? She had known something was wrong. She had known that Regina would never leave them like she did. Not on her own. He just was _so_ …angry at her for leaving. She hadn’t even said goodbye. She had chosen to leave. Not only just leave Emma but leave him too. She’d left him.

“Maine, she’s in Maine.” Emma knew Regina had to be there. It was the only place she could be. Dr. Diggs had gone all monkey business on her after she’d mentioned going door to door in Maine.

“We have to get to her!” Henry insisted; his voice cracking as he pulled himself up with the backs of both front seats.

“You need to put on your seatbelt.” Emma answered, though she understood Henry’s insistence. She felt it gnawing at her too. They needed to get to Regina because whatever was going on with her had to be the key to what was happening to Emma’s memory and why a flying monkey was impersonating her psychiatrist.

Henry groaned but he did as he was told and settled into his seat, just sitting up as much as his seatbelt would allow.

“We’re going to get to her. That’s the plan.” Emma promised.

Hook sat in his seat with a thoughtful expression upon his face. Then it was like a light bulb went off above his head. He knew what they were talking about suddenly. He just didn’t understand how they could possibly remember _who_ they were talking about. Wasn’t that supposed to be part of the spell that Regina cast on them?

It was meant to be a punishment/payment that the witch had to pay for the curse to reverse and take them all back to the Enchanted Forest, wasn’t it? Not that he knew very much about magic and the prices one had to pay but perhaps Regina had been wrong. After all he was about to have his suspicions confirmed about their knowledge of the Evil Queen.

“You’re talking about Regina.”

Emma and Henry both shot their eyes to Hook, their gaze intent upon him. “What do you know about Regina?” Emma asked, her voice low and dangerous.

“Yeah, what do you know about my mom?” Henry asked, mimicking Emma’s tone very well.

“Well, I suppose that depends on what you know about her.” Hook stated, trying to play this off as best he could. It would have been so much easier if the woman beside him had just taken the darn potion.

“She’s my wife.” Emma knew that she would need to share information to get information, and it wasn’t like telling him who Regina was to her could hurt. At least not right now.

“Wife?” Hook felt himself grow a little cold, the color draining from his face. But it seemed Emma hadn’t heard his harsh whisper. Or if she did, she choose to ignore it.

“She went missing a year ago. I’ve been looking for her ever since. Those papers you saw me grab in my office?” Hook nodded, recalling what she was talking about, though for the most part he was still in shock. “Those are all the leads I’ve had on finding her. But everything’s dried up.”

“You’ve been looking for her all this time?” Henry asked, his voice weak from the back seat.

Emma cringed, realizing that she’d just let her secret out of the bag. She met Henry’s eyes through the rearview mirror. “Yes, Henry I have been. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop looking Henry. I just, I _knew_ that something was wrong and I needed to find her. I needed to know why she would leave on her own.”

Henry looked down at the floor and Emma waited for him to deal with what she had just told him. She hadn’t meant for him to find out like this.

“She might not have left on her own…right?” Henry’s voice was soft and as small and boyish as Emma could ever recall hearing it.

“Yes. It’s possible she didn’t leave on her own.”

Henry grit his teeth and ground them together as his hands fisted at his sides, his anger bubbling up. Someone may have taken his mother from him and he hadn’t done anything to help her. He would change that. He would help Emma get his mom back for the both of them.

Hook may not understand in full detail what the spell had done to Emma but what he gathered from the latest conversation was that she 100% believed she was Regina’s wife. As interesting a fact it was to him and what it could mean for him and Emma in the long run, he needed to focus on getting Emma where she was needed. Then he could help Emma remember her real memories and recognize that the love and devotion she felt for Regina was only part of the spell the Evil Queen had cast on her.

“I can say that, your mother would never leave you willingly lad. She is a very stubborn woman and very dedicated to the people she loves.”

“How would you know?” The accusation was plain to hear in Henry’s tone.

“Because, I knew your mother. Once upon a time.” Emma looked at Hook through the corner of her eyes, doing her best to keep an eye on him while driving. “She will do just about anything for the people she loves. So you can be sure that she tried to get back to you. But sometimes these things aren’t in our hands.”

Henry nodded, knowing that he was right about his mom. She would have done everything she could to get back to them if she was taken away. That also meant that someone was stronger and smarter than she was if she hadn’t made it back to them just yet. Which just made him feel sick to his stomach.

“We have to find her…” Henry whispered, feeling the sting of tears in the back of his eyes.

“We will!” Emma promised. “Henry, I promise you we will find her.”

“And I know just where we can start looking.” Hook supplied.

“Where?” Both mother and son asked simultaneously.

“Storybrooke, Maine.”

**End Chapter Three**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 4**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Are you sure, this is where we’re supposed to be?” Emma asked as she followed the road that Killian put them on.

She had been driving for the last thirteen hours with only a pit stop in Boston for a food run and a stop at an old friend’s gun shop. Emma had left Killian in the car and taken Henry in with her. She picked up the emergency box that she’d left with him a few months ago, shortly after Regina left them. Inside there was a passport for her and one for Henry where their names were different, two guns, and money in an assortment of different currencies.

They ate dinner in Boston before they were back on the road. That was almost six hours ago.

Henry had been a good navigator and helped her avoid some of the traffic congestion. At one of the rest stops Emma had directed them away from Killian and chatted with Henry about Hook and how they weren’t sure they could trust him, but if he had answers about Regina they were going to use him until he got in the way.

Now it was the dead of night and Henry was fast asleep in the back seat. Killian was telling her to follow this road as if a town was going to magically appear in front of them. There was nothing on the GPS. All that the GPS said was that she was about to drive further into the middle of nowhere for another fifty miles. At least the ocean was on one side of them so she could find her way back if she needed to.

“Yes, I’m sure. Trust me, Swan.”

“Yeah, see, you keep telling me to trust you. But I don’t know you.” Emma stressed that fact.

“You would if you listened to me and took this…” He lifted up the vial he still held close to him. The last thing he needed was for Emma or Henry to take it from him and break it, thus him losing all hope of giving Emma back her real memories. Not these fake ones that had her playing house with Regina.

“All I know is that you appeared around the same time my life literally turned upside down on itself and that you keep trying to feed me that strange blue liquid.” Emma stared at the vial and watched as its contents swirled around like some neon liquor shot that’d knock her on her ass if she wasn’t careful.

“I keep trying to make you take it because it will help you remember everything that you’ve forgotten.” Killian stressed, careful to keep his voice down so he didn’t wake Henry in the back seat. He didn’t need the boy second guessing him as well. It had been the two of them against him for most of the ride. He knew that he would be able to convince Emma to take the vial if Henry’s opinion wasn’t constantly being whispered into his mother’s ear.

“And yet you’ve yet to convince me that it will magically do everything you say it will.” Emma kept her eyes on the road, her high beams jetting out into the pitch blackness around them. “If you’ve just led me and my son into some kind of trap I swear to god I will shoot you point blank between the eyes without a second thought not waiting to see what kind of monster you turn into. Do you hear me?” Her voice was grave because the further they got from society the more suspicious she became of the man sitting next to her.

She was well aware of the way he was looking at her. It was as if he expected her to immediately recognize him. To trust him as if they had some kind of relationship or bond where she should. It unnerved her how well he seemed to think he knew her.

“Magic is exactly how it will help you.” Killian looked out the window of the car and wondered how much farther before they finally reached the town border. It couldn’t be long now. “It will help you understand everything that is happening to you. You think that you’ve just been introduced to a world where children’s worst nightmares are real. But you’ve known of their existence for almost three years.”

Emma laughed at the implausibility of his statement. Three years ago she was happy with her wife and son living relatively normal lives. She just…couldn’t remember where they were living or what her wife did. She had a feeling it was something important. Like a lawyer or something. All she could really remember in fine detail was that Regina made far money than Emma did with the three jobs she sometimes ended up keeping.

Damn it! Why couldn’t she remember?!

Emma hit the steering wheel in frustration. Her head was killing her again. It had begun to ache as soon as they crossed the border into Maine. What she didn’t expect was for it to progressively get worse the farther they traveled. She’d taken Excedrin two hours ago and was considering taking more.

“I’m not taking that shit. So stop trying to peddle it off on me.” She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and when she opened them she saw a large grey wolf in the middle of the road with two different color eyes staring right at her. “SHIT!” Emma yelled as she swerved the car to avoid the animal, causing the bug to turn and screech to a halt on its side, diagonal across the road.

Killian’s head flew into the window next to him at the sudden stop. “What in the bloody hell, Swan!” He touched his head to make sure there was no blood. “Now we’ve both got splitting heads.”

Emma turned around, ignoring Killian’s complaints to check on Henry. He was still out like a light. With a heavy sigh Emma looked out at the road and around the wooden area for the wolf that she’d just seen.

“Shall I drive or have you planned this stop for a reason?” Killian kept his palm pressed up against his temple.

“What are you talking about? There was a wolf!” Emma pointed out towards the road where the wolf had been.

Killian raised an eyebrow at the woman, “No, darling, there wasn’t.”

Emma opened her mouth to say something more to Killian, turning towards him more fully when she saw something past him. Outside the window on Killian’s side of the road just passed the end of the passenger’s door, was a large green and white picket sign. It read: Welcome to Storybrooke.

The front of the car was over the town line.

Emma stared at the sign and felt her body start to tremble, shaking uncontrollably. She groaned at the sudden pain coursing through her.

Storybrooke…  
 _Storybrooke_.  
 ** _Storybrooke!_**

She and Henry and Regina lived in Storybrooke, Maine. They lived at 108 Mifflin Street.

Killian watched as what looked like waves started converging on the blonde, traveling up from the ground to the air above her head before disappearing out of visual sight. The waves were swaying towards Emma before withdrawing, doing so over and over again as the blonde shook with the otherwise invisible force.

They’d moved here from Tallahassee when Henry was three. Their neighbors were the Joyces’. Henry’s babysitters were Ruby Lucas and Ashley Boyd. Regina was a lawyer but she was also voted Mayor, beating out Mr. Gold. She worked as a private investigator out of Storybrooke and in Boston. For the last two years she was also working part time as the deputy at the Sheriff’s department after working for years as a waitress at Granny’s Diner and a self-defense teacher and physical trainer at the gym.

Killian watched the pulses suddenly stop as Emma fell slouched over the steering wheel, breathing heavily.

“Well…that was interesting.” Hook whispered to himself as Emma tried to catch her breath. “Swan?”

It was hard for Emma to even turn her head to look at the man sitting across from her. “I still don’t know who you are.” Even with the memories that had flooded her she had no idea who the man next to her was. All she knew was that he had saved her ass back in New York and was leading her closer and closer to finding all the answers she was seeking. So maybe, just maybe a part of her was starting to trust him.

Putting the car back into gear she straightened out the car and drove down the road that she remembered well.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Driving up main street Emma was surprised to see that it was empty. The town was dead. It was like there was no one there at all. Emma pulled her car over across the street from the library. She got out of the car and leaned on her door as she looked around the ghost town. Hook opened his door and looked around as well. He was careful to keep his eyes peeled for more enemies though.

“What exactly did you remember at the town line?” Hook couldn’t resist asking. He needed to know what the magic in the town had done. Had it helped Emma break through the spell that Regina cast on her and Henry or had it merely reinforced it now that they were in a place where magic existed and the spell she was under was strongest?

“Most of the memories that I was missing.” Emma admitted, sighing as she looked into the back seat to see Henry still snuggled up to one of the duffle bags.

“But you don’t know who I am?” Hook’s brow furrowed.

“Not a clue, Killian.”

He sighed heavily. “The spell must have just gotten stronger now that you’re back here.”

Emma didn’t want to believe him. She didn’t want to admit that she had seen how there was some kind of astrophysical force pulsating around her back at the town line. But she had seen it. She had seen how it had formed around her body and how it helped restore the memories that she had been missing. Except they still felt wrong.

There was something about all of the memories that she was recalling that was just wrong. Although she could remember everything she’d thought she had been missing the last twelve months, her head still felt like it was split in two. As if there were just too many memories in her head trying to occupy the same space.

She could still look at Killian’s face and feel like she knew him. That as she thought on the memories of her and Regina…there was still something missing. She remembered running after Regina after they’d had a few words at Granny’s, but even as she thought about the memories and what they’d said to each other and how Regina kissed her and came back into the diner, there was more. She also remembered Regina walking away, leaving her to go back into the diner by herself.

Or how she’d needed to fix her car when it had broken down and Regina had brought her hot chocolate to make sure she wasn’t cold. There was also the memory of Regina demanding to know what she was doing as if they hated each other.

Or how when she thought about the library she kept imagining a secret tunnel under it where something large would try and eat her, like the dragon in her nightmares. And when she thought about the Sherriff’s office she kept having flashes of that demantor attacking her. Then there was the Storybrooke sign. She remembered seeing it the first time with Henry fast asleep in the front seat clutching something to his chest at the age of ten; not three years old and in the back of the car in a toddler seat.

The wolf. She’d seen that wolf before too. On her way out of Storybrooke she’d seen it and crashed her car into the sign. She remembered that. But…it didn’t make sense. None of this made any sense.

“That wolf really wasn’t there was it?” Emma’s voice was soft and her expression open as she looked over the top of her car at Hook.

“No. It wasn’t.”

Emma nodded slowly, “When…well just before Dr. Diggs attacked me. I started seeing things. Memories. Except they weren’t mine. At least not memories that should be mine. They were just flashing in front of my eyes. But so were memories that I recognized. Memories that made sense to me. But…since he attacked me, nothing that used to make sense makes sense anymore.” Emma confessed, swallowing as she stared up at the sky and the clock tower. It was moving. The two hands were moving and telling the right time. Somehow that felt wrong too. Wasn’t it supposed to be broken?

Killian frowned, not understanding what it was that Emma was going through. She was trying to work something out of that he was sure. But she wasn’t moving. She was just staring up at the clock tower like if she stared at it long enough it would start talking to her and give her the answers she was looking for.

“Everything that used to make sense doesn’t. And now things that didn’t make sense _do_.” Emma sighed heavily as she looked through the window again and stared at Henry. Everything was about to change. For the both of them.

She knew, deep down, that she never should have come back here. It was time for her to choose. She could get back in her car and leave never to come back. She could take Henry and disappear, just like Regina had. Or she could stay, give in to the mysteriousness of all this and find the answers she’d been seeking for twelve months. She had to choose.

“Give me the potion.” Emma reached out over the top of the car and held her hand out expectantly.

Hook began to offer it to Emma before pulling back at the last second, “You’re not going to throw it are you?”

Emma rolled her eyes, “No. I’m going to be stupid enough to take it.”

Hook stared at her disbelievingly, but offered her the potion anyway.

Emma popped the cork and tried to ignore how rotten it smelled as she brought it up to her lips. She looked down at it as it rested inches away from her lips. She took a deep breath, looked at Henry one last time, tilted her head back and took the potion like a shot.

She coughed as soon as it finished sliding down her throat. “God that tasted…”

Emma stopped talking. Hook realized in moments that she wasn’t blinking.

“Emma?” He got no response. “Emma…” Nothing. He made his way around the car and stood in front of Emma as she stared ahead, seeing nothing. “Emma!” He grabbed a hold of her shoulders and was about to shake her when she snapped out of it and took a large gasp of breath and fell into his arms.

He caught her and began to lower the both of them down to the ground slowly. She was awake, that he knew. He could feel her trembling. It wasn’t until he felt wet tears touch the skin of his neck that he realized she was silently crying.

Her grip on his arms tightened as she tugged him closer and buried her face against his neck. He didn’t need to know what she was crying for. He could only imagine the pain it was causing her to realize the life—relatively happy life—she thought she’d lived with Henry (and Regina) wasn’t real. That she had actually been alone for ten years. That all the things she’d had nightmares about weren’t just nightmares but factual memories she’d lived through.

“Oh god…” Emma whispered as she pressed her forehead against Hook’s shoulder, her fingers fisted in the sleeves of his shirt. “Oh god…” She felt sick. Her head was throbbing as she remained upon the cold sidewalk, clutching desperately at Hook as if he could make the mess of her life better.

Everything… _everything_ she’d known was a lie.

The last thirteen years…no, no, the last year was real, it was the twelve before this one that wasn’t. The twelve years she had been happy and satisfied with her life was all a lie. It was all a lie. She hadn’t kept Henry. She’d given him up so he’d have his best chance because she wasn’t it. Not in reality, the real reality that she and Henry had both lived before they were put under a spell by Regina.

“Why…” Emma whispered the question into Hook’s chest. “Oh god why would she do this to us?” Emma was desperate for that one answer.

All of her other questions had been answered. She knew everything she needed to know except why. Why would Regina give her and Henry memories of them being a happy family? Why would Regina give her memories where they were together, romantically….sexually?

God…Emma shivered at some of the memories she had of being intimate with Regina. She could remember how the older woman’s lips tasted and what it felt like to have Regina’s mouth slowly descend down her body bringing her pleasures she hadn’t known she’d been missing out on.

“She made me love her…” Emma admitted aloud. It was the spell. It had to have been the spell. But the devotion and love she felt for Regina, not two minutes ago was still settled about her heart. She feared now that it was there it wouldn’t leave.

Regina had ruined her. How could she ever hope to find the happiness that Regina had given her in their fake life together? Fake feelings or not she still felt them. The emotions were still there. How could she ever hope to love anyone as much as she had loved Regina—fake Regina or not?

To us…How could she do this to them? Them…

**_Them._ **

Regina hadn’t just done this to her. She had done it to Henry as well. Henry would now have two sets of memories. One where he was raised by a single mother who he came to despise. And another where he had two loving mothers up until twelve months ago where he still came to despise Regina and Emma alike. He would know what it was like to have holidays with just Regina. And now know what it was like to have holidays with them both. He’d know what it was like to see his mother kissing someone—that someone being her. He would know what it felt like when the three of them were a family and how happy he—and they were.

Emma squeezed her eyes closed and felt her grip tighten on Hook’s shirt. Gods help her, but she wanted the person holding her to be Regina. She wanted to smell Regina’s rose and lilies scent. She wanted to feel the brush of Regina’s hair on her cheek and the slender feel of her arms around her.

“I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Emma. We’ll find out why she did this. We will. We’ll find out how this all happened. But first we have to get you and Henry to safety. We don’t know how safe it is here out in the open.”

Emma nodded her head slowly, letting Hook help her up from the floor and back to the car. He sat her down in the passenger side and drove them to Granny’s.

Once there he left Emma in the car with Henry to see about getting them a room.

Emma watched him carefully make his way to the door, his eyes on the sky. She kept her eyes as peeled on the sky as she could muster. She felt…numb.

She thought she had been lost and clueless before. Now she knew what it was like to feel like she didn’t know anything.

She had trusted Regina to cast that spell on her and Henry. She had put her faith in Regina, believed in her, and she had been stabbed in the back. Emma thought she could trust Regina implicitly. That if there was anyone she could trust to want the best for Henry like her it was Regina.

She was wrong.

Regina was just as she always had been. Evil.

And yet she felt an unexplainable ache in her chest as she thought of the woman. She felt a need to find her, just like she’d had for the last twelve months. It was like a part of her was incomplete without Regina. And now that she was this close to finally seeing her, finding her, that drive to get to her only intensified. It was as if they were connected on a magical level that Emma couldn’t fathom at the moment.

There had to be an explanation. Didn’t there? Nothing was ever black and white when it came to Regina. Ever. Everyone wanted it to be that simple, but it wasn’t. Regina was just as complicated and flawed as any normal person—except not many normal people were powerful witches that cursed thousands of people for shits and giggles.

“Ma…” Henry’s voice was heavy with sleep as he started to wake up. “Are we there yet?”

Emma drew her gaze away from the window and looked into the back of the car. Looking at her son with new eyes, knowing eyes.

“Yes, Henry.” She breathed out softly, “We’re home.”

**End Chapter Four**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 5**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Shh…shh…” There was soft boyish giggles coming from somewhere just beyond consciousness. Emma heard the sound and smiled softly in her sleep as she turned on her side. A gasp registered at her movement and all sound in the room was silent.

“Okay…go on.”

Mmm…Emma knew that voice. She kept her eyes closed as suddenly her mind began imagining the sight of girlfriend. She heard the soft giggles again and realized that Regina was not alone in the room. Peeking open an eye slowly she noticed, thanks to the alarm clock on her night table, that it was still early. Far too early to be getting up on the weekend or on…Emma felt her breath hitch in her chest. Mother’s day. Today was mother’s day.

“SURPRISE!” Henry screamed as he pounced up on top of Emma, pushing all the air out of her lungs. Emma gasped and rolled onto her back, allowing Henry to fall onto her stomach. She smiled at the three year old little boy and grabbed him around his waist and started tickling him.

“You certainly surprised me.” Emma breathed out in sincerity when she quit tickling Henry, who was now laying on his back a little flushed but still laughing to himself. Emma looked to the side of the bed and saw Regina standing there in her pajamas…which the older woman hadn’t been wearing when they fell asleep last night if Emma’s memories served her correctly.

“What’s all this?” Emma indicated the tray that Regina was still holding. There was a soft blush on her cheeks. This wasn’t the first mother’s day that had been celebrated together. But it was the first mother’s day where they were a couple. There was a significance to it that was different than all the other ones.

“Breakfast. We made breakfast.” Henry sat up and jumped off the bed to stand beside Regina.

“You guys did? What’d you make?” Emma asked, her eyes moving between Henry and Regina.

“Apple pancakes.”

“Your favorite.” Regina whispered, still standing at the side of the bed as if she were afraid to sit on the bed. Regina always became a little nervous when Henry was in the bed with them. She hadn’t wanted to inform Henry about their relationship. As Emma recalled Regina didn’t want to test the waters at all, but had otherwise been convinced when her jealousy got the best of her after Emma had accepted a dinner invitation.

_“Do you except me to stay home and be your babysitter!?” she had hissed. Emma knew she’d wanted to yell but Henry was sleeping on the couch only a few feet away from them._

_“I didn’t except that no. I was going to see if I could get a friend of mine to babysit.”_

_“So you will have a stranger in our home taking care of Henry while I am still here?”_

_“Regina that’s not it! That’s not what I’d thought would happen. I figured you could go out with your friends. I feel like we keep you from having a life. This way we both can enjoy some time out.”_

_Regina’s glare was deadly, “I do not want you seeing this man.”_

_Emma straightened her shoulders, “Well that’s not up to you, Regina. I’m a twenty one year old and I can do as I damn well please.”_

_“You’re too young! And he’s…he’s…”_

_“He’s what?” Emma asked, pressing to find out why Regina was so upset about this._

_Regina crossed her arms, “He’s far too old for you.”_

_Emma laughed, “Regina, he’s your age. He’s not nearly too old for me.”_

_Regina’s mouth hung open at that, and merely blinked several times. “He’s a good man. Kind and sweet. He has a kid of his own and he’s been understanding of my past and the living arrangements we have here. Not to mention he’s rather attractive.”_

_“He only wants you for sex…” Regina hissed as her eyes tracked to the couch to make sure Henry was still sound asleep._

_“Why?” Emma tilted her head to the side. She wouldn’t pretend that Regina’s words hadn’t hurt. They did. “He can’t find me attractive outside of my body? Do I have nothing else to offer someone? Is that how you see me Regina? As some whore?” Instead of getting angrier than she already was, she reached a level of contained rage. She was calm as she held Regina’s eyes and dared the older woman to say anything else._

_“You know that’s not what I mean! Damn it, Emma. Why can’t you just…ugh!” Regina turned her back to Emma, unable to see the fury directed at her within Emma’s eyes. Her hands were shaking and she felt like she was about to ruin something that had become so very precious to her._

_“Why can’t I what, Regina?” Emma pressed, stepping closer to the older woman, so when Regina spun around to tell her just what she wanted, they were within a hairs breath of each other._

_Regina’s eyes narrowed in on Emma’s lips, her breath stilled within her chest. She licked her lips unconsciously before she slowly forced her eyes to meet Emma’s. “Go out with me.” Regina whispered, “Date me.” Emma’s eyes widened and she faltered a little by taking a half step backwards. Regina at this point had put it all on the line and followed her, so that they were pressed up against each other. She raised her hand up to Emma’s cheek and pushed some of the blonde’s hair behind her ear. “Want me.”_

_“But you said you didn’t want to risk…”_

_Regina tilted her head to the side and leaned in till she was centimeters away from Emma’s lips, and stared up into the blonde’s eyes, “Forget what I said.”_

_Emma nodded her head in small rapid gestures, leaning forward to finally, finally….taste Regina’s lips._

Emma blinked away that memory of their first kiss. She met Regina’s eyes, charmed that her girlfriend would be doing something so sweet for her. The last two years they had merely gone out to brunch together with Regina’s parents when they were in town. This year it looked like they had made a homemade breakfast.

Henry motioned for Regina to bend down a little so that he could reach what laid on the tray. He picked up a card and a thorn less rose. With both in hand he jumped back up onto the bed and crawled over to Emma, eagerly handing her both.

“Happy mowtha’s day, Ma.” He gushed, bouncing in his seat as he waited for Emma to open her card.

Emma looked down at the card that had scribbles on the front of it that she assumed were supposed to be ‘mom’. With a grin she leaned down into Henry’s ear and whispered, “Why don’t you go get the other card you made.”

Henry smiled brightly and nodded his head. He was off the bed and running out of the room at the speed of light. Leaving Emma alone with Regina. Putting Henry’s card aside for the moment she crawled to the edge of the bed and took the tray of food from her girlfriend. She put it on the night stand and turned back to the older woman. “Good morning.” She whispered as she leaned into kiss her.

Regina smiled against her lips, “Good morning, stinky breath.”

Emma chuckled as she pulled away and gestured for Regina to sit on the bed. “Thank you. They look delicious. You didn’t have to…”

“I thought it would be special if we all shared today, together. Like this.” Regina couldn’t hold Emma’s eyes as she admitted such a thing. So Emma let her look away.

“Well, it is special. Thank you.” She kissed Regina’s cheek before moving to lean against the headboard at the top of the bed.

“Where has Henry gone off to?” Regina asked as she picked up her cup of coffee from the tray and began sipping at it.

Emma smiled conspiratorially. “You’ll see.”

Regina’s eyes scrunched with scrutiny, but she didn’t have time to ask Emma anything more before Henry came running into the room. In his hand was a small mother’s day bear no bigger than Emma’s palm that had a heart in the center that read ‘Best 2nd Mom Ever’. He also had another card that he eagerly handed to Regina and after hiding the bear behind his back for a few moments as Regina looked at Emma for an explanation, thrust out the bear with a nervous shift of his weight from one foot to the other.

“Happy Mowtha’s day.”

Emma heard Regina’s gasp from her seat at the top of the bed and watched as Regina’s hands began to tremble as she saw the bear. Regina turned slowly to look at her, as if asking for clarification or maybe permission to be as happy as she was over this.

Emma gave her both as she smiled at her girlfriend, “Happy mother’s day, Regina.”

Regina’s first tear fell as Emma moved to pick up Henry and put him between them. “And it was all his idea.” She gave Henry the credit he deserved and tickled him making him smile and laugh as Regina took the time she needed to absorb what this meant for her.

-.-.-.-.- **Present** -.-.-.-.-

The night was slowly turning to day as Emma sat in the uncomfortable arm chair by the window of the same room she had rented three years ago the first time she had come to this cursed town. Her eyes were unseeing as she tried to think about what she was going to do. She was exhausted. She knew that she should at least try and sleep. But how could she go to sleep at a time like this? Her whole life was a mess of double memories that she was trying to wheedle through to come up with the truth.

Sleep? Ha. She was used to running on only a few hours of sleep. Those nightmares she was having for months made a hell of a lot more sense now that she recalled her ‘real’ life. And the diagnosis of PTSD suddenly made a lot more sense as well. Except there was no addition of, ‘of abandonment’ needed. She just suffered from clean cut PTSD. After the hell she had gone through in the last two years—had **_REALLY_** gone through, it certainly made sense. It just took her thinking she had a normal life to realize that she was suffering from a psychological disorder that should have been treated two years ago.

Except it wasn’t, because she had still been in the midst of a life or death situation, there was always something going on. Never time to really think about everything she was going through until it was being used against her by the evil trying to destroy their lives. Maybe it was a good thing she had been diagnosed with this, even if it was passed down to her from a man that wasn’t even a human and probably not even a real doctor.

Blinking her eyes, Emma focused on Henry’s sleeping form. He was curled up in bed getting as much sleep as he could. Emma had told him he would need his rest if he was going to help her on this very sensitive case. He hadn’t wanted to do so at first but as they stumbled into the room she was ‘renting’ from Granny he’d fallen onto the bed and sighed before falling back to sleep.

Thinking of Granny, Emma didn’t know what to say or do about the elder woman or her granddaughter. Emma didn’t know what to say as she stood in front of Granny Lucas and Ruby. They had looked at her as if they didn’t know how to react to her either.

The two Lucas women had been great to her in the past and that hadn’t changed. As soon as Hook told them that he had brought Emma back, after testing their memories of the blonde and him first, they had come running.

They weren’t cursed like they had been when she first met them. They could both remember their lives here in Storybrooke and their lives in the Enchanted Forest. Apparently, what they couldn’t remember was the year that they had been back in the Enchanted Forest. Or so Hook had told her just before Granny and Ruby came rushing out of the Inn to help Emma bring in her things.

It was disconcerting to see Granny standing guard with her crossbow, giving them cover fire, as Ruby and Hook helped her unload the car. Everyone was careful not to wake Henry, who’d fallen back to sleep. They had succeeded until they’d closed the trunk, the shuffle and noise finally waking Henry. He’d shot up in his sleep, eyes alert and body tense.

“Mom…mom!” He called out, panicked when he saw he was alone in the car. Emma moved to the window, waving Granny and Ruby to the Inn as she calmed Henry. The last thing she needed at the moment was to try and explain to Ruby and Granny why Henry could remember them but not completely, not the way they would think he would if he recalled them.

She opened the door so he could see her, and touched his shoulder. “I’m here, Henry. Was trying to get the things unpacked without waking you.” She truthfully told him, watching as he seemed to calm down at the sight of her.

“Where are we?” Henry asked, trying to peer out into the night, but his eyes were still blurry with sleep.

“We’re stopping for the night at an Inn.” Emma didn’t want to test what henry would remember now that they were in Storybrooke. She wondered if his memories of their fake life were going to be stronger now that they were back in Storybrooke, much like hers had become.

This was going to be more complicated. She hadn’t realized how complicated it was going to be until she had seen Ruby and recalled how in her fake life she would often come home after a date night with Regina to see Ruby on the couch or somewhere in Regina’s home—which had been their home in the memories—and they’d chat amicably before Ruby would leave so that Emma could have private time (sexy times) with her wife.

Henry would now have memories of Ruby babysitting him that the werewolf didn’t have. Emma herself had memories of working as a waitress at Granny’s and having the oldest Lucas woman as a boss. A rather cut throat type of boss that was not shared with Granny or Ruby for that matter.

How was Emma going to handle this? Henry would remember David and Mary Margaret as his grandparents, but as he remembered them, they were Regina’s parents and had left the country months ago, abandoning them as much as Regina had. What was worse was that they were all going to remember her and Henry as well. Regina was going to remember them but not the way that Emma remembered her.

“God…” Emma sat up, suddenly unable to get comfortable. She ran her hand through her hair as her eyes peered out the window. The sun would be up in an hour or two. Maybe it was time that she went to talk to Ruby and Granny herself. She had let Hook be liaison between them as she was just too tired to deal with everyone and everything so soon.

She knew that she wouldn’t have a choice come day break. She would need to go and see Mary Margaret and David and talk to them about what was happening. But first she was going to see if she could get any answers about whatever she was dealing with from the Lucas women.

Quietly exiting the room Emma walked down the stairs, following the sound of voices. Voices she found conversing in the sitting room of the Inn.

“What does she remember exactly?” That was Granny.

“Everything. At least, that’s what the potion was meant to do.” Hook.

“How did you come into possession of the potion?” Ruby.

“It was delivered to me by a blue bird of some kind. It warned me of the curse and told me I needed to get this potion to Emma, that it would restore her memories. I assumed it was the doing of Snow White as it was not signed.”

Ruby looked thoughtfully between her grandmother and Hook, “That does sound like something Snow would do.” Ruby looked up before anyone else; her eyes peeled at the doorway seconds before Emma even came close enough to see.

“Yes it does. At least if the Disney movie is to be believed.” Emma leaned against the doorframe as she crossed her arms and stared at the three friends. “Though that doesn’t really answer how you were able to escape the curse.” Emma directed the question to Hook. “And who cast it.”

“Emma…” Ruby smiled softly at her and made her way over to hug her.

Emma sighed softly into Ruby’s neck as she returned the hug, though did so stiffly. Once they had hugged she smiled and nodded her head at Granny, not really in the mood to be touched more so than she already was.

“Those need to be looked at.” Granny stared from the other side of the room, her eyes on the cuts along Emma’s neck. They couldn’t do anything about the bruising—that made it clear someone’s hands had been wrapped around the area, but they could at least clean and bandage the deeper of the cuts.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.” Ruby offered as she left the room.

Emma didn’t want there to be big fuss, but now that the injuries were out in the open there was nothing she could do to stop them. Emma rubbed at her temple, her head still aching with a deft pain since the attack. She was talking about curses and magic and Snow White sending singing blue birds as carrier pigeons again, and a part of her hated it. Hated that she had allowed herself to be pulled back into this kind of mess. The other recognized that there was no escape. The life she was living with Henry not supplied by the spell Regina cast was breaking apart, making her crazy, both literally and figuratively.

When Ruby came back she sat Emma down in one of the arm chairs and kneeled in front of her friend.

“Go get the girl some ice packs.” Granny instructed of Hook. “They’re in the freezer.”

Killian met Emma’s eyes before he followed Granny’s instruction and left to get the ice packs.

“Now…” Granny started as she sat across from Emma, “…how exactly did you receive those?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I…” Emma stopped what she was saying all together as she realized that yes, they would believe her if she told them. They were used to these types of things. After all the woman gently patching up her neck was a werewolf. “My physiatrist tried to kill me. Turned into a freaking flying monkey. Because you know, those are actually real too.”

Emma laughed to herself, feeling like she was seconds away from breaking apart at the seams. She continued to laugh, unable to stop now that she had started. She laughed hard enough that it became impossible for Ruby to continue and laughed long enough that the tears came on their own.

Ruby and Granny looked at Emma sympathetically. Unsure how to help the woman who was once again pulled into a world she was unfamiliar with. Ruby and Granny had aged in a world where magic was real. Emma had only been introduced to it after she was well into living her life. Whether she was born in their world or not, she hadn’t grown up in it. She had grown up where magic was a thing of fantasy and werewolves like them were things of horror movies. Now she was just given a crash course in the actuality of such things. They didn’t think less of her for reacting as she was.

“Sorry…sorry.” Emma hiccupped another laugh before she pulled herself together. She wiped at her cheeks.

“Nothing to be sorry for.” Ruby promised as she squeezed Emma’s knee.

Emma reacted immediately, nearly yelling in pain as she pulled her leg as far away from Ruby’s hand as she could manage. “Damn…” Emma groaned as she clutched at her leg around her knee.

“Can I?” Ruby asked as she indicated her knee.

Emma nodded her head and hissed as Ruby rolled up her pant leg over her knee. She didn’t even need to look at it to know that it was sprained. It was probably swollen to.

“That is definitely sprained.” Granny said from her spot. “I’ll go get some of the birch bark and barberry salve to help with the pain and swelling.”

“Thank you.” Emma stated as Granny left, leaving her alone with Ruby.

“So…a flying monkey huh?” Ruby asked with a smirk.

Emma rolled her eyes, unable to stop herself from smirking as well. “Yeah, like right out of the Wizard of Oz.”

“Well you always had a thing for green skinned witches. Maybe you’ll find one for real.” Ruby joked, knowing Emma’s fondness of the Oz book series by L. Frank Baum and Gregory McGuire’s spin-off.

Emma laughed softly, shaking her head at the absurdity of this all. “Yeah, well let’s deal with figuring out who cursed you all again before we try and set me up with a green skinned witch.”

Ruby nodded solemnly.

“Ice packs as ordered and some wicked smelling salve that smells worse than rotting fish.” Killian scrunched up his face as he held the jar of salve out to Ruby.

“Great…” Emma frowned, “Just what I need. To smell like rotting fish.”

“Oh hush. That salve will heal your knee in two days time, maybe three. Better to smell like rotting fish for three days than have this injury for a few weeks, don’t you think?” Granny asked as she came into the room with a medical wrap.

Emma couldn’t argue with that. “No…” She stated, properly chastised. “Especially when we still don’t know what’s going on here.”

Granny hummed as she shooed Ruby up so that she could put the salve onto Emma’s leg. It was cold and had Emma unable to sit still as it was spread over the swollen area.

“Need you to sit still so I can disinfect these cuts, Em.” Ruby frowned as Emma hissed in pain as she used the disinfectant on the cuts. “Almost done. I promise.”

“Distract me.” Emma told Killian, who was standing to the side, uselessly.

“With tales of my escapades? Oh Swan I thought you’d never ask.” His accent was thick as he spoke and his smile teasing.

Emma rolled her eyes, “How did you escape the curse?”

“Why, I outran it with the Jolly Roger of course.”

Emma hummed as Granny started to tighten the wrap around her knee. “Of course…how did you find me?”

“That I am afraid to say was merely Lady luck shining on me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ruby asked, curious as she looked over Emma’s shoulder at Hook.

“The last city outside of this lovely little town I saw Emma was New York. I thought I might be able to track her from there. I was lucky to find her already living there.” Emma took that as a logical step to take. It was something she would have done as well.

“New York, huh?” Ruby asked envious, Emma recalled how cursed Ruby had wanted to travel.

“Yep.”

Ruby went back to looking at the cuts on her neck, placing small butterfly bandages over them.

“How long have you guys been back in Storybrooke?”

“Two, almost three weeks.” Granny answered from her place in front of Emma.

“What happened to the time before that?” Emma looked at Granny and then strained her sore neck to meet Ruby’s eyes.

“We don’t know.”

“Is it possible that you never left Storybrooke?”

Ruby looked pained as she thought of an appropriate answer to give Emma. “It’s possible, but…”

Hook shook his head, “No. I’m afraid we all traveled back to the Enchanted Forest. I was with you all for a bit of time before I left to be on my way. Last I heard you were regrouping with those you could find and heading to Regina’s castle to start over and for safety.”

“Safety from what?” Emma asked, seeing as how both Ruby and Granny needed time to absorb what he had just said. And Emma personally knew how disconcerting it was to be going without detailed memories of the past.

It would appear that they hadn’t been in Storybrooke for more than three weeks, but that still left everyone in Storybrooke with almost a full year of missing memories.

“You recall what the Enchanted Forest was like the last time…” Hook admonished. “It still needed to be rebuilt as the Ogres were just beginning to be pushed back by the people unaffected by Regina’s original curse.”

“Right…ogres, zombies, giants, a back stabbing pirate,” Hook flinched only slightly at the observation Emma could now make of his character. He had hoped she would recall all the good he had done for her and her family in Neverland and forgive him for his previous erroneous actions against her.

“…and chimera.” Emma shuddered at the type of food she had been forced to eat when stuck in the enchanted forest with Mary Margaret. The fake memory that had been planted over that one was of Emma going camping with Henry, Regina, David and Mary Margaret and having to eat rabbit. She had not been fond of that, and neither had Henry.

“There are also more people here this time. So those who weren’t caught in the first curse were in the second.” Granny explained as she fastened the wrap around Emma securely before standing. “There. Now you’ll need to replace the wrap and salve every twelve hours for the next few days. I suggest no strenuous activity on it, if you can help it.” Which, the older woman knew might not be possible, but she’d give her instructions nonetheless.

“Thank you….both.” Emma looked at both Granny and Ruby as they packed up the supplies they’d used to help her.

“Here. Keep these around your neck to keep the swelling and bruising down.” Granny handed Emma the ice packs wrapped in cloth that Hook had brought in. “You should try and get some rest. Your parents will be expecting you.”

“Sleep is a good idea, Swan. You’ve been through a lot today.”

“Thanks, _mom_ …” Emma stressed the feminine parental role as she stared at Hook. “I know exactly what I’ve been through. What I also know is that I won’t be able to sleep without night terrors and can’t afford to take the sleep medicine I’ve been given because then I’ll be knocked out for at least eight hours. I also don’t know if those pills are even real or if they’re poisoned because the doctor who prescribed them to me is the same man who tried to kill me and turned into a flying monkey. So, as good of an idea you _think_ it might be, it **isn’t**.” Emma had no real reason to be this angry with Hook. He was just someone she could place her frustration on who could take it, and maybe who deserved it, or had at one point.

“I am only trying to look out for you.” He said so very softly, that Emma believed him.

Emma nodded once, “Go get some sleep for yourself. You look like crap.”

“Impossible. I always look good.”

Emma rolled her eyes at his vanity, happy that he left to go get some rest. Granny left as well but when she turned to Ruby as if expecting her to leave the younger woman raised an eyebrow, looking insulted that Emma would think she’d leave.

“I’m staying with you. I’m a creature of the night. I can go without sleep longer than you can.”

Emma tried to smile at what she knew was meant as a joke, but just couldn’t manage it. Not when all she could think about was how this was all going to blow up in her face come morning. Henry was going to recognize the town and the people but not remember anything about magic or the last two years he lived here. He was going to know Mary Margaret and David but not _really_ know them. Just like he was going to recognize Regina, know her in a way that was going to devastate everyone involved.

Emma sighed as she thought of David and Mary Margaret. “I don’t know how they’re going to handle this.” Emma rubbed at her forehead already fearful of the stressful situation she was going to be walking into tomorrow when she explained to her parents that their grandson thought they were Regina’s parents.

“Why would you say that? They’ll be thrilled that you’re back.” Ruby admonished, thinking Emma feared they wouldn’t want her back here with them.

“There’s a lot that you still don’t know, Rubes.”

“Well, tell me. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

“You’re not going to like it.” Emma hedged.

“Let me see about that.”

Emma smiled, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

So Emma told her everything she could remember. How the memories that Regina gave her were both a blessing and a curse because now she had memories of this great life with a woman she loved and who loved her and she’d have to see Regina tomorrow and see the disgust and annoyance in her eyes. She shared how worried she was about Henry and how he would remember everyone but not how they remembered him. How she was afraid someone would slip up about magic and fairytales around Henry that she’d be forced to either lie or tell him the truth.

“Okay…so, let me get this straight.” Ruby began, finally able to register what Emma had just told her. “Your fake memories had you and Regina married. Like really actually married.”

“Yes.”

“And the memories had you raising Henry together, here in Storybrooke, together, as a couple together.”

Emma sighed, knowing that the shock was causing these repetitive questions, but still finding it disheartening. If Ruby was reacting like this she could only imagine how her parents would.

“They also had Snow and David as Regina’s parents?”

“Yep.”

“So he remembers them, as his grandparents, he just remembers them as Regina’s parents.” Emma nodded. “He also remembers me as his babysitter?” Again Emma nodded. “Well, Ems that’s not so different than what really happened. I used to babysit for him even before the curse broke and you left him with me. Ashley babysat for him too.”

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. “Great. So it’s possible some of his memories are memories he’ll share with you. Just lacking me in the picture of the original memories. That’s great. Then anyone could be reassured that he knows them and has his real memories when he doesn’t.” Emma shook her head. She knew that there were a lot of things to worry about, like the curse being cast on her friends and family again, but what she was most worried about was Henry. Especially Henry in regards to Regina.

“We’ve got to get his memories back.” Ruby took the words right out of her mouth.

“Agreed.” Emma looked towards the window and saw that the sun had risen and light was beginning to seep into the room.

Dawn had broken and brought with it a new day. Tomorrow was here and she had a lot of work to do.

-.-.-.-.-

Flying over the town just as the sun began to shine over the large wooded area of the town, Walsh landed roughly in the dirt. Hissing in pain he grasped his bleeding shoulder and slowly stood. He made his way towards the cottage that housed his mistress. Knowing that he was going to be delivering news she was not happy with.

Not that the Wicked Witch of the West was ever really very happy to begin with.

**End Chapter Five**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 6**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Mom, calm down.” Henry tried to calm Emma down. She had been listing off instructions for him to follow for the last fifteen minutes. It wasn’t like he was a little kid anymore. He knew what he was allowed to do and what he wasn’t.

He was almost fourteen. He didn’t think he needed a babysitter but he understood why Emma would leave him with Ruby. Something dangerous was going on. The bruises along his mom’s neck were just a visible reminder of the real danger that existed around them. He knew Emma would feel better if he was with Ruby while she tried to find Regina.

“I get it. I’ll stay with Ruby. I won’t leave her sight. I promise.” He didn’t want to make this harder for anyone. He knew that if his mom was here that there was someone trying to keep her here. What didn’t make sense to him was why they would keep Regina here and why none of the people he’d grown up with would let whomever was keeping Regina here do that. He tried not to think too hard on the matter because the more he did the more his head started to hurt.

Emma sighed with relief, “Thank you, Henry.” She kissed the top of his head as she hugged him. He hugged her back tightly, trying his best to assure himself that the gun his hand brushed over was going to be enough to protect his mom if she got into trouble.

“Be careful.” He whispered against the top of her shoulder.

“I will.” She promised. “Listen to Ruby. And if anything happens, you have my number.” That last bit was directed to Henry and Ruby, who stood just off to the side, waiting for them to finish their conversation.

Ruby stepped up to Henry and placed her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Go do what you have to do.”

Emma nodded, staring at Henry for a moment more before she turned and left the Inn, Hook following close behind her.

“Where to, Captain?” Hook asked, unsure where Emma wanted to start.

“I’m off to see my parents.”

“And where am I going?” Hook asked, realizing she had no intentions of having him with her as she spoke to her parents.

“To find clues as to what the hell happened here. You’re the only one that remembers the last year of your life in the Enchanted Forest. Go see if you can find someone who might be of some use to us in finding out who and how this curse was cast.”

“Don’t you think that’s rather obvious, love? Who do we know that’s already cast a curse like this before…?” His tone reminded Emma of those cheesy game show hosts who were asses.

Emma shook her head, “No. She didn’t do this.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“Yes I can.”

“You’re allowing the feelings the spell caused you to have to interfere with your judgment.” Hook was disappointed. He hoped now that Emma remembered her real memories she would be more realistic when it concerned Regina.

“The spell isn’t what’s clouding my judgment. Reason is what is clouding it. If Regina was the one to cast the curse and they’ve all been back for three weeks she wouldn’t still be here pretending like she doesn’t remember the last year. She would have come looking for Henry.”

Hook had to admit, at least a little bit, that she had a point.

“So, have anything else to blame on the spell?” He didn’t say anything, “No? Good. Now, let’s find out who actually did this shall we. Without drawing attention to ourselves. Whoever did this is going through a lot of trouble to make it impossible for us to find out who they are. They already have the upper hand. Let’s not give them any more leverage okay?”

“Aye aye.” Hook felt a small smile form on his lips as he and Emma separated. It was nice to have the old Emma back. To have her taking charge and putting him in his place. He found it rather attractive how strong willed she was. He always had. He wondered if the Regina in Emma’s fake memories enjoyed that particular trait as much as he did. He then shook his head at himself. He was jealous of the memory of a woman who technically did not exist and yet who was the greatest threat he now faced in winning Emma’s heart.

Emma took a deep breath and quietly made her way to Mary Margaret’s apartment. Hoping that David and Mary Margaret would still be there as it was still very early. She felt the dull headache she’d had since yesterday start to get stronger the more she thought about seeing Mary Margaret…pregnant.

Ruby had let her know earlier that morning before she’d gone to get dressed for the day, having never gotten to sleep, that they’d known it had been close to a year of moving time for them because of Mary Margaret’s pregnancy. The thought of her parents having another child wasn’t easy. She had known it was going to happen. Mary Margaret had confessed her desire for another chance at raising a child in Neverland. Emma just thought she’d gotten lucky and wouldn’t have to be around to see how happy the couple would be preparing for the baby and raising him or her.

It seemed her luck had run out though. She was going to be a big sister, nearly thirty years older than her sibling. Her own son was going to have an uncle thirteen years younger than him. Their family tree was already dicey without the new addition, so Emma could only imagine how this would all work out. Though she hoped it worked out better for her parents this time around than it had last.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Emma settled herself with a deep breath as she raised her hand to knock on the door. This was it. Time to meet her parents/in-laws…again.

“Here goes nothing.” Emma knocked heavily on the door four times.

It didn’t take long before the door was opened and Emma was staring at David. His eyes widened as he looked at her, his mouth opening slightly as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it after a moment.

“David…” Emma greeted with a small smile.

His eyes suddenly shined with tears as she spoke his name. “Emma…you remember.” He whispered as he waited just an instant for her to nod her agreement before his arms were wrapped tightly around her.

Emma felt her breath hitch as he held onto her as if he never wanted to let her go again. She felt tears sting her eyes but she refused to let them fall. She was a grown woman and did not need to cry when her father—who was the same age as her—hugged her like it was all he’d wanted to ever do.

Emma reluctantly pulled away from David’s embrace and smiled softly at him. He looked good.

“How…when?” He asked, closing the door behind her, though he took a moment to look for Henry. “Where’s Henry?”

“He’s with Ruby. We got in really early this morning, or late last night, however you want to look at it.” Emma explained as she ran a nervous hand through her hair before stuffing it into her jacket pocket.

“Come in, come in. Your mother’s just in the shower. She’ll be so happy to see you.” David gestured for Emma to come away from the doorway and into the apartment that she’d lived in for nearly two years. It should feel like home. She should feel comfortable here. But she didn’t. She didn’t feel comfortable here. It just felt like someplace that she’d stayed in the past. It didn’t give her any warm and fuzzy feelings. That, amongst the growing list of consequences of Regina’s spell, concerned her.

“I hear you’re expecting.” Emma cut right to the chase as she noticed how suddenly nervous and uncomfortable David became at the mention of Mary Margaret.

David was surprised she knew, that was clear upon his face. “How?”

“Ruby let me know. Thought it would be a better idea that I knew before I saw you guys today. Take away some of the shock value, you know?”

David rubbed at the back of his neck, a mannerism that Emma herself also possessed and did when she was nervous. “Yes, I guess that’s good.”

“I’m happy for you both, David. You guys deserve a second chance to do things right this time.”

“ _Do_ things right?” David frowned at the turn of phrase.

Emma internally cringed, that wasn’t what she’d meant. “I mean get things right. Get your second chance at having the life you wanted.” New baby and all. “I know how precious that kind of chance can be.” Emma looked off to the side, unable to bear the disappointed look on David’s face.

David didn’t seem convinced by her correction, and to be honest, she wasn’t all that convinced either. This was truthfully going to be something she had to get used to. The last thing she needed on her plate right now was being jealous of her unborn sibling. She had more important things to worry about.

“Maybe you should go tell Mary Margaret, I’m here, so she doesn’t faint or something when she sees me.” Emma suggested, anything to get David out of the room and have a moment to compose and collect herself.

“Good idea.” David was quick to leave the room and head to the bathroom to tell Mary Margaret who was waiting for them in the living room.

As David did that, Emma walked around the living room a little and noticed the coffee table was covered in baby books. Some of which she had memories of reading, of seeing Regina reading, and some she had actually read herself while in juvie.

She picked up one of the books that she’d actually read and noticed how far along Mary Margaret—or David—was in. They were just getting to the good part about childbirth itself. And it seemed that whoever was reading this book had highlighted the term midwife and home birth. Emma cringed at the notion of such a thing. If it were her she’d want to be in a hospital surrounded by doctors and nurses and anything they might need if something, god forbid, were to go wrong.

Emma hoped Snow would change her mind about the home birth. She knew that being back in the Enchanted Forest would have forced them to reacquaint themselves with living in what was similar to the medieval times, but they were back in the world of technology now. Where there were doctors that helped you through childbirth not fairies and dwarves.

At the sound of fast approaching footsteps Emma put down the baby book and turned around to greet her mother. Her smile only faltering for a split second when she first saw how far along she was.

“Emma…” Mary Margaret breathed out her name like it was the answer to her prayers. She was soaking wet and dripping water all over the floor and appeared to only be in her bathrobe. Which wasn’t too bad when Emma thought about it. After all they had been roommates for a year and she had seen a bit more of her mother’s body than she probably should admit to having seen.

“Hey, mom…” Emma felt the term fall from her lips before she could even think to stop them. She just, it was just a little much for her right now as she was suddenly a little emotional. The two stepped towards each other simultaneously.

Emma met Mary Margaret half way and held onto her as tightly as she would let herself, the large swell of her stomach pressing into her as she did. Mary Margaret didn’t hesitate to try and pull her closer and hold her tighter. There were tears already falling down Mary Margaret’s face as she finally pulled back, to cup Emma’s cheeks. Her eyes noticing the bandages and bruising around her neck.

“My God, Emma what happened to you?”

  
David, who had been standing just behind his wife and daughter noticed the injuries for the first time now that Mary Margaret had pointed them out.

Emma tried to wave off their concern, “It’s nothing. Really.”

“Nothing? Emma, those bruises are in the shape of someone’s hands!” Mary Margaret gently reached towards Emma’s neck, stopping herself from touching the wounds centimeters away from it. Mary Margaret turned to David for his support and his observation of the bruises. Then she realized Henry was nowhere to be seen, “Henry! Where’s Henry, is he okay?” David put a comforting hand on Mary Margaret’s shoulder to try and keep her calm, knowing any unneeded stress was not good for the baby.

“Henry’s fine. He’s with Ruby.” Mary Margaret looked like she wanted to question that more but stayed focused on the conversation at hand, for now. “I’m okay. I handled myself.” Well enough at least. She still swore that Dr. Diggs was much stronger than he should be. Then again he was supposed to be human too, so there was that.

“Who did this to you?” David’s voice was gruff, his eyes darkening as his hands flexed at his sides. His reaction reminded Emma startlingly of Henry’s.

“My physiatrist.”

Mary Margaret’s eyebrow rose, “You’re seeing a psychiatrist? Why what’s wrong?”

Of course she would focus on why she was seeing Walsh, while David asked at the same time,

“What’s his name? Where can I find him?”

“One question at a time!” Emma held up her hand to stop them as she took one step away from them both, needing the space to just breathe. She looked at David first, “His name is Walsh. He was in New York before he sprouted wings and grew a tail and flew away.” That caught both of their attention. “And yes, he was posing as my psychiatrist, but he was actually a plant by the person who cursed you to keep me away.”

“But why were you seeing a psychiatrist?” Mary Margaret re-asked.

Emma sighed, “Because I was… _am_ … ** _may be_** suffering from PTSD. And I was depressed. Suffering from long term memory loss, because the spell Regina cast was malfunctioning or something.” Mary Margaret gasped at that, “Whatever it was, I started to have trouble remembering things that I should have remembered about the fake life she had given me and Henry. Having night terrors. Things were triggering panic attacks, migraines, sleeplessness and loss of appetite. So it was either I had severe PTSD of abandonment or early onset Alzheimer’s.”

David shook his head, trying to understand what Emma was saying. He hated magic. It was also so complicated. He wasn’t as familiar with many things Mary Margaret and Emma knew about. He hadn’t been awake for 28 years living and getting used to this world and it’s technology and medical advancements. He did recognize the term PTSD and knew a little about that, but not much.

“Of Abandonment? How could you have that if you didn’t remember your real memories?” Or how she and David had abandoned her as an infant was what Emma really heard underneath the question.

“I still remembered my life up until I was eighteen and had Henry. I just choose to keep him and raise him myself.” Emma chewed on the inside of her lip as she realized she’d have to tell them exactly what she remembered as her life. They’d need to know before they could see Henry, and she knew that they’d want to see him as soon as possible.

“Oh that’s wonderful Emma.” Mary Margaret breathed with joy for her daughter, until she realized that although those memories had to have been a gift at the time, they were now probably nothing more than a burden that weighed guilt down upon her heavily.

“They were…” Emma smiled brightly, lost in thought of the life she’d lost when she took that potion. “They really were. We were happy. So happy. Life was good. We were a family.” Emma thought of her and Regina watching Henry as he rolled around in the grass of their backyard, Regina’s arms wrapped around her from behind.

“Emma…” David hated to pull Emma away from the memories that seemingly made her so happy, but there was still much they had to discuss.

“Sorry…I uhm, do that a lot recently. Space out. I have two lives worth of memories swimming around in my head. It gets confusing sometimes.” Emma admitted, feeling slightly embarrassed that she’d allowed herself to space out in front of her parents.

“It’s okay. Why don’t we go sit down in the living room. Your father will make us some tea.” Mary Margaret saw David nod as he went to make the tea as instructed while she led Emma to the couch.

“I’d much prefer coffee if you have it?” Emma asked as she looked towards the kitchen where David was already getting water.

“We have some. I’ll make it.” He put both the kettle on and the coffee pot as quickly as he could so that he could rejoin his family on the couch.

Mary Margaret sat Emma down slowly and settled her before she too sat down on the couch beside her. Her hand moving to rest on Emma’s knee.

“Easy…” Emma hissed as Mary Margaret pressed down on her knee.

Snow pulled her hand away from Emma as if it had been burned.

“Sorry…” Emma apologized. “My neck isn’t the only injury I got. I sprained my knee in the fight and bruised my elbow pretty badly too.” Snow’s eyes widened and opened her mouth to tell David to get something for Emma’s knee when Emma stopped her by putting her own hand on Snow’s leg. “Granny’s already treated it. It’s wrapped up with some kind of bark and root ointment that’s supposed to make it better in a few days.”

Mary Margaret seemed relieved about that, and relaxed. “Good. Granny is an excellent healer. I’m sure if she thinks it will be better in a few days it will be.”

Emma nodded, allowing silence to overtake them as they sat together. She did her best not to look at the baby books on the coffee table.

“One cup of decaf tea and one caffeinated coffee.” David announced as he came into the living room with the two cups, made exactly how she and Snow took them.

“Thanks, David.” Both mother and daughter said. He smiled in response before he pushed some of the books to the side of the table and sat down on it.

“So, what aren’t you telling us about these memories?” David asked as he leaned forward.

Emma breathed out a small laugh; of course he would know she wasn’t telling them everything. But to be fair she hadn’t had much time to share everything just yet. “I was married in these memories. Henry was raised with two loving parents. And two amazing grandparents.”

Snow gasped, almost spilling her tea. “Married?”

“Who’s the lucky man?” David asked, though there was an underlying tone to his voice that Emma couldn’t place.

Emma sighed, and put down her coffee without taking a sip. Her stomach was in tight knots to let her keep down anything. No matter how good that coffee smelled. “I wasn’t married to a man, David.”

Confusion settled over both of her parents before David realized what she was saying first, he didn’t miss a beat once he’d figured out what she wasn’t saying, “Who’s the lucky woman then?”

“Woman?” Mary Margaret gasped, surprised that David was catching onto this faster than she was.

Emma nodded, looking at Mary Margaret carefully, “You knew that I was interested in both men and women before the curse broke.”

“Well, yes…but…” Snow was a bit tongue tied now that she was put on the spot.

“You were…are?” David looked a little put out that he hadn’t known that.

“I’ve dated women before, David. I spoke with Mary Margaret about it before the curse was broken. It wasn’t as if I didn’t tell you deliberately. I just didn’t think to mention it with everything that was going on.”

“That’s understandable.” He had to acknowledge that it made sense why Snow would know this information while he didn’t, but what he was surprised by was Snow’s sudden discomfort with the matter.

It wasn’t that Mary Margaret was uncomfortable with the idea that Emma could be with a woman, or would be in her fake memories. What concerned her was if this woman really existed and was about to be brought into this type of world without having had a single clue in the world. And she knew that not many people could handle such a revelation and she didn’t want to see Emma hurt. Emma deserved to be happy. And she deserved to be happy for real, not just only in fake memories gifted to her in a spell. She deserved to be loved in real life, not just in her mind.

“You still haven’t answered your father’s question.” Mary Margaret pressed, hoping to hear that Emma still had a chance to be happy.

Emma ducked her head and took a deep breathe. “This is where things get complicated.”

Mary Margaret sighed, she knew it would. “It’s okay.” She touched Emma’s shoulder, stopping David from touching Emma’s bad knee when he went to offer tactile comfort as well.

“I hope you’ll still think so.” Emma admitted. “Now you have to let me tell you everything. Okay? You can’t interrupt me. I promise I’ll answer any questions you have after I’ve explained. But it’d just be easier if I could say this all at once and then have you react.” She looked at both of them and waited for them to agree to her terms before she started to explain.

“In the fake memories I was married and you were my in-laws. You were my wife’s parents, and to be honest you didn’t like me very much. But you adored Henry and your daughter, and she adored me so you dealt with your discontent with me being in her life.” God was it weird to think about Regina being Mary Margaret and David’s daughter. Even just in the fake memories it was still awkward.

“So, Henry will remember you, but he won’t remember you as my parents. He thinks that you’re my…wife’s parents.” Emma didn’t realize how hard of a time she would have saying ‘wife’ now that she knew she had never actually been married to Regina. “He also thinks that you’ve been traveling overseas because about twelve months ago his other mother left. In our memories I had a fight with her and she left that night to cool off, but when Henry and I came home the next day all her things were gone. It seemed like the spell didn’t know how to compensate for Regina not actually being there, that it had her abandon us, leave me and Henry. Ah!”

Emma held up her hand and stopped Mary Margaret from saying anything out loud. The other woman snapped her mouth closed but her eyes spoke volumes.

“Yes, the woman I was married to in these fake memories was Regina. No, I don’t know why or how that happened because we were supposed to forget about her and you all.” She thought it was important to at least give Regina the benefit of the doubt, and hope to god that she hadn’t purposefully cast that spell with those types of memories being implanted. “But we didn’t. Our memories had us here, in Storybrooke, raising Henry around everyone. Which makes things very complicated because Henry only remembers these fake memories, but if he’s anything like me, the moment he starts to question things the less and less things are going to make sense and the harder the spell is going to work to make things at least appear to be real. Which nearly drove me crazy.”

Emma recalled how painful it had been to think about everything that just didn’t fit into the realm of plausibility. Or at least, hadn’t then. Now it was easy to consider such things. After all she now knew magic existed. Henry did not.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Henry sat in the living room of Granny’s Inn with a frown. He was flipping through the tv stations absent mindedly. It was still really early in the morning and most of the channels didn’t have anything good on. After what felt like an hour he gave up on the TV and just sat in the living room by himself. He saw a pen resting on the table in front of him and he picked it up. He started tapping it against his bottom lip as he leaned back in his seat and tried to work out this current case like his mother would.

He needed a piece of paper. He needed to start writing down everything he knew about the situation so that he could better ascertain what was still missing. Once he got the piece of paper he sat in the living room and started working on his fact sheet.

That was how Ruby found him an hour and a half later.

There were tension creases in his forehead. He had such a bad headache that light itself was hurting it. He’d put down the pen and was covering his eyes with both of his hands. There were so many things that just didn’t add up. He didn’t understand how they couldn’t add up.

“Henry…hey, are you okay?” Ruby asked as she sat next to him.

“Headache…” Henry groaned at the sound of Ruby’s voice.

Ruby frowned, realizing he must have been in a great deal of pain to look as pale as he did now. “Here, let’s get you upstairs. I have some advil that you can take.” Henry willingly followed Ruby up the stairs, leaning heavily against her as they went up the stairs.

Once he was back in bed with a cold compress covering his eyes and head, Ruby stood in front of his door, a worried expression on her face. She considered calling Emma but then thought better of it. She’d wait and see how Henry felt when he woke up before she worried Emma unnecessarily.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Emma! You’re being blinded by your remembered feelings for Regina! Of course she did this on purpose. She wanted Henry to remember her and what better way than to insert herself into your memories as a lover? It would keep her close to him even in fake memories.” Mary Margaret insisted.

They were all standing on opposite sides of the coffee table at the moment, making one big triangle. Though her parents were making a united front against her as they stood relatively close on the other end of the room.

“I am not blind to who, Regina is. Or was. What you are being blind to is who she has become!”

“Emma, how can you be defending her right now? Her spell nearly caused you to go crazy. It caused you to fall into a depression thinking the person you loved left you.”

“How could I blame her for that? She wasn’t there. It wasn’t like she could have planned for the spell to start to break apart.” Could she? Could they be right? Was she being blinded by her feelings for Regina to see what they so plainly were?

“Couldn’t she? Its perfect timing really, isn’t it? The spell falls apart nearly a year into its casting just in time for her to cast a new curse and bring us all back here so she can find you and Henry and take him from you.”

Emma shook her head, no. No, that wasn’t possible. Regina wouldn’t do that. Not to her. Not to Henry. “No. She wouldn’t cause Henry that kind of pain on purpose.”

“Emma, your mother has a point.” David realized just how much of a point Snow had.

“Fine…” Emma conceded. “Maybe you do have a point. But tell me then, why hasn’t she left to find Henry if this was her plan from the beginning? Why wait a month extra before coming to look for us?” Emma asked, causing both Snow and David to look at each other in thought. “The only way your theory works is if she planned to come and find Henry and take him from me from the beginning. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to ty and take him from me when she knew I would have the support of you and the whole town. So why wait for us to come and find her? Why make us hate her because she left us both just to come back and try and make things right with Henry after I’d gone off the deep end? Hmm? It wouldn’t work. It doesn’t make any sense!”

Emma insisted, because she couldn’t let it make sense. If it even began to make sense she wasn’t sure she knew how to handle that realization. It was hard enough trying to deal with her feelings for the Regina she remembered in her fake memories in comparison to the woman whom she’d actually come to know. They truly were seemingly one and the same in so many aspects.

Was she being blinded by her feelings? Were they right?

“She saved you all. At the cost of Henry. She saved you all. She could have come with us. She’s the only one who could have crossed that town line. But she saved you all at the cost of her happiness.” Emma whispered, unable to meet her parent’s eyes. Slowly she looked up and stared at them both, feeling her confidence return as she straightened her shoulders. She was ready to continue this argument for as long as she had to until they saw her point. “She’s not the same person she was when she cursed you all those years ago. And shame on both of you for maintaining your black and white portrayal of her still. You should know better.”

“Emma…” David was the one to try and smooth things over this time, but Emma just waved him off, stepping back every time he stepped towards her.

“I may be confused right now about how I feel about her. But I know her. I always have. It’s only when I listen to ** _your_** opinions of her that things start to go wrong, because you’ve been wrong. You were so sure that she killed Archie and I let you convince me. I let that stupid dog’s memory convince me of something I knew wasn’t what happened. She hadn’t lied to me then, and we pushed her right into Cora’s waiting hands. We let her be manipulated by Cora and in turn you manipulated her into killing her own mother.” Emma knew it was a low jab, but it was the truth and sometimes Snow and David needed to be reminded of their faults and come down off their high horses. “She was ready to die for all of us when that trigger was set off. She was willing to give up her happiness so that you all could go back to the Enchanted Forest and have yours. She’s not the evil queen anymore and the more you insist that she is the more she’ll try and prove you right.”

Emma took several deep breaths to calm down. “Don’t prove her right. Trust in her. That she wants what’s best for Henry and she realizes now that what’s best for him is to have a family with all of us in it. Why else give me those memories? She had to work around my own memories of not having a family and still had you included in my life as parents, and Henry’s as grandparents. And our lives were good. And happy. They only fell apart when the memories weren’t just implanted but Henry and I were actually living in New York.”

Mary Margaret sighed and stared at Emma for a long moment before she turned to David. They communicated silently as they often did before she looked back to her daughter.

“Fine. We’ll try our best.”

“Thank you.” Emma breathed out the thanks sincerely.

David changed the subject, realizing for now this conversation was over. “What do you suggest we do about Henry’s fake memories?”

“We find Regina and see if she can help us make a memory potion.”

David cringed internally at the idea, “If that’s the plan then I think there’s something you should know.” David segewayed as he shared a slightly concerned look with Snow. “It’s about Regina and…”

“And…?” Emma pressed.

David sighed and looked to Mary Margaret for help, but Mary Margaret wanted nothing to do with this. So she left him to finish what he’d started. “She’s seeing a gentleman from the Enchanted Forest.” He stated, “Romantically.”

Emma felt her heart thump painfully against her chest. She blinked several times as she absorbed what her parents were telling her. A part of her was happy that Regina had found someone while the noisier and larger part of her wanted to know his name, profession, and address so she could get rid of him. Regina was hers! And yet…she wasn’t. Regina wasn’t her wife and she wasn’t Regina’s. She was nothing to Regina now.

“Oh…” Well wasn’t that just peachy.

**End Chapter Six**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 7**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Emma asked as she looked between Mary Margaret and David.

They wanted to see Henry and they had been trying to reassure Emma that they could handle seeing their grandson. It wasn’t that Emma didn’t think they were capable of handling the situation. What she was worried about was Henry’s reaction to seeing them. Specifically to seeing Mary Margaret pregnant.

Something very odd about her memories was that she couldn’t recall how old Mary Margaret looked. She recalled remembering how she often thought that Regina’s mother looked very young for her age. But that was it.

It physically shouldn’t have been possible for Mary Margaret or David to be Regina’s parents. At least with how young they were in the fake memories. But it looked like the spell had maintained a sense of acceptance to the abnormality or somehow worked around that. But Emma still could only recall Mary Margaret and David as they looked now in both sets of memories.

The spell’s sense of acceptance would probably fail when Henry saw just how far along Mary Margaret was. Not that it was impossible for a woman in her fifties to have a child but Mary Margaret didn’t look older than thirty. The more Emma thought about how Mary Margaret had looked in her memories she couldn’t really say for certain if that were true.

Emma rubbed at her head, all of this continued to leave her with a splitting head ache and she wasn’t under the effects of the spell anymore. But she recalled how strong it had gotten when she crossed the town line. If it was that strong for Henry the more questions he asked himself about things that didn’t logically make sense, the more the spell was going to try and compensate. Now that they were back in Storybrooke Emma wasn’t sure how it would do that.

“Emma, we can handle this.” David promised as he touched her shoulder and waited a moment before stepping around her. He made his way into Granny’s Inn and Mary Margaret followed him. Emma signed heavily, she knew this wasn’t a good idea but her parents never seemed to think she was capable of making sound decisions.

“David. Snow…what are you two doing here?’ Ruby asked, putting herself between her friends and the doorway that’d lead to the living room.

Emma stepped into the Inn, surprised to see Ruby holding her arms back to keep David from moving forward. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea that you see him right now. He’s not feeling well.”

“If he’s not feeling well then we can help him.”

Ruby stared over Snow’s shoulder and met Emma’s eyes. The werewolf’s worry was plain.

“What’s wrong with him?” Emma asked as she pushed past her parents.

“He’s been having headaches all day. He was laying down before but he woke up about an hour ago. After breakfast he got sick. I was just about to call you. Ashlee’s in with him right now.”

“Why can Ashlee see him but we can’t?” Mary Margaret asked, becoming frustrated with her friend. It had taken her and David nearly an hour to convince Emma that they could handle seeing Henry as he was. They would be sensitive to what he remembered. They knew the parts they would have to play. They had phone conferenced with Dr. Hopper before they’d left the apartment. Together they had all come up with a physically capable and plausible excuse for why Regina would not recall who Henry was and why Emma and Henry had been kept away from her for so long.

Leave it to her parents to want to work out the entire back story before she had even seen Regina. It left Regina with little choice in the matter, but Emma didn’t say another way around this. Henry remembered Regina. Regina would remember Henry, but they wouldn’t share the same memories. And there in lie the problem. Henry would want to be close to Regina—or so Emma assumed. For all she knew Henry could react negatively to seeing Regina and want nothing to do with her. A negative reaction by Henry would further complicate matters, but also make this back story valuable to them all in an effort to placate him while he was suffering from the effects of this spell.

That didn’t mean Emma was comfortable lying to Henry. Or testing out their theories on him when he was already fragile enough.

“He’s our grandson.” David used that fact as if it would guarantee them entry. But Ruby didn’t move and she was very capable of holding David back, even pushing him back a few steps to keep him out of the room.

“And he’s my son.” Emma challenged David with a look. “I’m going to check on him, see what’s up. If he’s okay to see you, then you can. If I don’t think he’s capable of it, then you don’t.” There would be no compromises. “Keep them here, or outside if you can manage it.” Emma whispered to Ruby as she passed her friend, thanking her by squeezing her shoulder.

“This is ridiculous! He’s our family.”

Ruby sighed, a little tired of David’s age old defense, “Yeah, and Emma left him with me to look after because right now, whether your family or not, you’ll hurt him more if he sees you. Especially you, Snow.” Ruby sounded contrite when she spoke to Snow, her eyes moving to her friend’s stomach.

“He remembers you.” Snow held onto David’s shoulder with one hand as the other covered her stomach, they didn’t need to be fighting with each other. And she knew how wound up David already was from the ‘conversation’ they’d had with Emma.

“Yes. He does. And that isn’t hurting him?”

“No, because he remembers me as I was for real. He just thinks that I worked at the diner with Emma too. Otherwise most of his memories of me match up. Same with Ashlee. With you…it’s more complicated. He thinks you’re supposed to be in your late fifties and for any kid, his grandparents having a baby is a little…weird.” Ruby attempted to be as gentle as possible in breaking that news to them. “Same with the older sibling.”

“David, why don’t we step outside for a little while, okay?” Snow gently guided her husband towards the door, offering Ruby a small sad smile as she went.

Ruby sighed with relief. She really didn’t want to get into a fist fight with her friend.

“Thank you.” Emma said from behind Ruby.

“No problem.” Ruby tried to play it off.

“It’s not just no problem. So thank you. Thank you for defending Henry.”

Ruby looked over her shoulder at Emma as her friend came to stand beside her.

She nodded in acceptance of the thanks, “How’s he doing?”

Emma stood beside Ruby with a long sigh. “He’s doing alright. But I don’t want to tempt fate too much. But he’s getting restless. He wants to get out of here and he wants answers. The same answers that I was looking for not twelve hours ago.”

“You think he can handle seeing them?”

“I think that he’s going to see them sooner or later. It might as well be in a controlled setting.”

“It’s your choice.”

Emma smiled softly at Ruby. She wondered sometimes how Ruby and Snow could be friends when they were so different. Ruby understood the world in ways that Snow refused to allow herself. She was capable of it, but she had refused to see it that way for a very long time. Emma liked to think that back in Neverland she had finally started to accept the world as it really was, not how she wanted it to be. Too bad that acceptance didn’t extend to the realization that she and David weren’t entitled to everything they thought they were.

“You’re still mad at them.” Ruby offhandedly commented. Giving Emma moment to talk to her if she wanted it. But Emma also knew that if she wasn’t ready Ruby would let it go. She’d just bring it up again another time, giving Emma another chance to talk about it.

If Emma had learned anything from those sessions with Dr. Diggs, it was that talking about what she was feeling actually did help things. It didn’t make everything better, but it made her feel better.

“It’s hard not to be mad at them again. Until last night I thought that I’d been abandoned and my mother was a con artist drug addict who was only in my life because it suited her. Sometimes I feel like it’s the same for them. That they only want me in their life when it suits them, when they need me. But once they don’t need me anymore, they’ll be happy to see me off again.” With this new baby they won’t need her around anymore.

They’d be too busy raising him or her to have time for her unless there was some evil force that she was destined to stop. Usually it was the second child born to a monarch that was cast aside in the shadows of their older sibling because they were never going to rule. In this case Emma knew that wouldn’t be the case. Her brother or sister would be raised to take the throne that Emma didn’t want, and be dotted upon like she never had been. And she was jealous and bitter. But she also had her own son and a life of her own that didn’t need to include her parents.

So, when the time came she would happily let them have their happy ending with their new baby. She just hoped she could have her own happy ending as well. Was it really that hard to believe that she deserved it just as much as they did?

Ruby turned fully to Emma, “That’s not how they feel.”

“No.” Emma shook her head, she knew that’s not how they felt, but it was how they acted from her perspective. “But it’s how I feel. And that’s just as important.” Emma’s smile disappeared as she stepped away from Ruby and went to the door to get her parents. It was time to get this over with.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

To say that Henry was surprised to see Mary Margaret and David was an understatement. He hadn’t expected them to be here. He almost forgot that they hadn’t been calling or speaking to them for almost twelve months when he stood to hug them. His surprise at seeing them was explicated when he realized that Mary Margaret was pregnant.

Henry had looked at Emma for help and clarification. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond to something like this. When he saw her placating smile and nod he figured it was okay to be unsure about it. He still hugged her, he just did so reservedly.

They talked at Granny’s Inn for a little while before it was decided that they would all get brunch together at the diner. Ruby had phoned Granny already and the matron told Ruby she had been spreading word of Emma and Henry’s return all morning. She was also as stern as she could be about how everyone had to can their talk of magic as Henry’s memory wasn’t what it should be. So all her patrons would all have to can talk of magic when and if Henry showed up. It was better to have the initial reaction of Emma and Henry’s return over before they ever showed up, get the shock out of the way.

Emma walked beside Henry, following David and Mary Margaret to the diner. She was keeping her eye on Henry to make sure he was okay, really okay. Ruby had gone in ahead of them as Granny needed all hands on deck for the lunch rush.

Emma was surprised Henry wasn’t having as strong of a reaction to Mary Margaret and David as she expected.

“Is Gran going to be okay having a baby at her age?” Henry asked, his eyes watching Mary Margaret from behind.

Emma looked a little taken aback. “Why would you ask?”

“Well she’s in her late fifties and she has more grey hair than the last time we saw her. I’m just worried, you know?” Henry was sure to keep his voice low so his grandparents didn’t hear him.

Emma squinted as she looked at Mary Margaret from behind. There wasn’t a single grey hair on her head. She looked between Henry and Mary Margaret a few times before she stopped Henry, letting David and Mary Margaret continue ahead of them. “She has more you think?”

“Well yeah. It used to only be a little grey, you know, salt and peppered hair. Now it’s kind of just greyish white.”

The person that Henry was seeing when he looked at Mary Margaret wasn’t actually Mary Margaret. Not the Mary Margaret she was seeing. Maybe it was because she now knew what Mary Margaret actually looked like that she thought she’d always appeared younger in her previous memories.

That had to mean something too didn’t it? Her memories, it was like they were blending together. What that meant, Emma didn’t really know. But she knew who she’d have to ask about it.

“She must not be dying it.” Emma commented as lamely as she could, unable to think of anything else to say. Emma cupped Henry’s cheek, “She’s going to be fine.”

He nodded his head once, hiding his tears as best he could. The sight of the tears allowing Emma to understand the depth of his worry. Emma hugged him to her side with one arm and tried to ignore how everyone they saw on the street seemed to be focusing in on them. Their whispers starting after they’d passed. Emma really did hate living in a small town. There was never any privacy and everyone knew everyone else’s business.

“If they’re here…why haven’t they helped mom?” Henry asked of Emma when they started walking down the street once again.

Emma cringed as she thought of Regina and stared at Henry. His question was founded. “There’s something that I have to tell you about your mom, Henry.” Emma spoke softly as they reached the fence just outside of Granny’s.

Henry’s eyes widened and he started shaking his head as he took one step away from Emma. “No, no…she’s not.” He swallowed thickly. “She’s not dead is she?”

Emma’s mouth parted on its own, “No! No, oh god no Henry. That’s not what I was…no. That’s not it.” Emma felt her heart, realizing it had started to pound dangerously against her chest at the thought of losing Regina to death on top of everything else. “She’s alive. God she’s alive. I’m sorry.” Emma wasn’t sure if she was apologizing to herself or him. “That’s…not it exactly. Your mom, you know how I was having trouble with my memories?”

“Yeah…” He refrained from saying how he was starting to have trouble with his own. Maybe hoping she was about to give him answers as to why that was.

“Your mom is having trouble with hers. See, she has different memories than we do.” Emma cringed internally as she tried to explain this. “Something happened to her when she left that night when we had a fight. She slipped into something that took her away from us.” Like the curse, so she wasn’t lying. She had to word this carefully so Henry’s own lie detecting ability didn’t start firing. “It happens sometimes. Like when people fall into a coma and wake up. Sometimes they don’t remember life the way it actually happened. Or their former lives at all.”

“Mom was in a coma?!!” Henry’s eyes were wide as saucers. His palms getting sweaty.

“I’m going about this all wrong…I’m sorry. Henry. Let’s try this again okay?” Emma growled to herself as she tried to calm herself down and explain to Henry the lie that Mary Margaret had helped her concoct with the help of Dr. Hopper who they’d had on speaker phone. “Here, let’s sit down for a moment okay?”

Henry nodded his head and went to sit at the outdoor table with Emma.

“So she has different memories….” Henry prompted.

“It’s a type of amnesia like disorder.” All the brain storming that Mary Margaret and Archie had done together was being wasted with her having to explain this to Henry. She was no doctor and to be honest she wasn’t very sure this would work. But she hoped it would. Telling Henry about this dissociative fugue would solve some problems he would have with seeing Regina walking around as if everything were fine when his whole world was falling apart.

They came here thinking that someone was holding Regina here against her will. Although that was true, someone was keeping the people of Storybrooke here, the life Henry remembered with Regina wasn’t actually real. And when he confronted Regina there needed to be a plausible explanation for why his mother didn’t recall their lives together.

“What? Was she in some kind of accident or something? How could she just get this amnesia like disorder?” Henry was smart, his best class was science, but he had never learned about disorders of the brain. He was only a freshman in high school. He wouldn’t take psychology until Junior year. What little he knew about psychological disorder he knew about from the research he had done about Emma’s PTSD. He would need to look up this disorder now.

“It wasn’t…not exactly, kid. Sometimes extreme sources of stress and trauma can cause this. It’s called dissociative fugue disorder. It’s very rare. It causes people to start to wander away from their homes. Sometimes really far away and forget about their old lives. They look normal. Like nothing is wrong, but their brain has created a new life for them. A new identity.”

“So mom isn’t mom anymore? Does she even know her name?” Henry asked, feeling his pulse quicken. How could his mom forget their lives? How could she forget him?

“Henry, she remembers her name. She just doesn’t remember us the way we remember her.”

Wait, that meant that his mom remembered him, but didn’t? How was that possible? “I don’t understand.”

Emma sighed, “I know, I don’t really understand either, buddy. But the reason why your grandparents didn’t tell us she was here was because it was better for her that we not be here. When two sets of memories collide it’s very hard on someone.” Like how hard it was on her right now. But she was making it work, because she had no choice. But she knew if this wasn’t a do or die type of situation she might be holed up in a bar somewhere drinking away her problems because she couldn’t tell which emotions were real and which were fake.

“So, they were keeping her here?” Henry asked, peering over his shoulder into the diner where he saw them waiting at a table.

“It wasn’t exactly like that Henry.”

“Then what was it like?” Henry’s temper got the better of him. “Why couldn’t they at least tell us why she was gone? I spent so much time hating her. But it wasn’t even her fault. If what you’re saying isn’t a total pile of crap then she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help being away from us and I hated her. I wished that she would be in as much pain as we were and…it’s not fair.” Henry’s voice broke as he sank back into his seat. Emma went over to him and hugged him close to her. “It’s not fair…”

“No, it’s not fair. But it’s no ones fault either. People make mistakes Henry. They do what they think is best for others. And there are consequences and sometimes there are innocent people who get hurt.”

Henry cried against Emma’s shoulder, uncaring that people could see him doing so. Emma held onto Henry tightly and let him burry his head against her shoulder. The touch of his tears on her skin made her heart ache. She wasn’t good at comforting Henry when he got like this. She wasn’t very adept at sharing emotions, but she was getting better. It was a slow process though.

When Henry calmed down, he slowly leaned away from Emma and wiped at his nose with the back of his sleeve. Emma didn’t bother to ask if he was okay. She knew he wasn’t. He was thirteen years old and Emma hated that she had to lie to him about what was going on. The only consolation to all of this is if it would keep him healthy and safe until she could give him back his old memories.

“Come on, kid. Let’s get you washed up a little. Eat something and then go back to Granny’s to rest.”

“Okay.” Henry’s movements were sluggish as he stood up. He kept his head down turned as he walked into Granny’s. He walked right passed the table Mary Margaret and David had grabbed. Emma followed him in and noticed how the noise around the diner halted as she stepped inside. All eyes were either on her or Henry. Sighing, she realized this was going to happen for a while.

“Is he okay?” Mary Margaret whispered the question as Emma stood in front of the table.

“He will be. I told him about the dissociative fugue thing.” Emma shook her head at the mere title of the disorder. “He took it well considering.”

David was about to say something but was interrupted by a phone call. As soon as he stood up to take the call Emma’s phone rang as well. She looked apologetically at Snow before she stepped outside to take her phone call as well.

It was as Mary Margaret was sitting alone that she was approached by Zelena. The red headed woman was quick to make herself known to the mother to be. Smiling ruefully as she gushed over meeting someone as famous as Snow White. She mentioned her job as a midwife in the past and realized how interested Snow became immediately. She saw the young boy coming back and made a quick exit, leaving Mary Margaret her number written on a napkin.

Snow looked at it and watched Zelena leave the diner, bumping into Emma on her way out. Emma apologized even though it wasn’t her fault and met Zelena’s eyes as the woman ducked her head and left without a word. Odd, but not uncommon. People didn’t know how to talk to her; thinking her to be a Princess—the daughter of the rightful King and Queen.

Shaking off the encounter that took less than two minutes, she made it back to the table just in time for Henry to reach it. His face was less red now that he’d splashed some water on it.

“I, that was Killian. I have to go.” She didn’t want to, but he had mentioned that there was some kind of attack by another flying monkey very close to Regina’s house. What was worrying Hook and the patrols that were working around the clock these days, was that none of the attacks had happened in the middle of the day. Until now. Something was up, and Emma felt in the pit of her stomach that it wasn’t good.

Apparently no one here in Storybrooke had known that it was flying monkeys that were taking the missing people. Emma had described the beast that had come flying at her in New York in as great detail as she could, insisting that she did in fact know what she was saying when she told her parents that the beasts they were hunting were flying monkeys. Like from the freaking Wizard of Oz.

“Is everything alright?” Snow asked, knowing something had happened if both Emma and David had been called.

“I have to check it out before I can really answer that.” Emma gave her attention to Henry. “Will you be okay here for a little while?” Emma didn’t really want to leave Henry just yet. But she needed to make sure that Regina was okay. And it was probably time that the older woman knew that she and Henry were back in town before she found out from someone else.

Henry looked a little uncomfortable at the idea of staying with Mary Margaret but nodded his head. “Yeah, I’ll just go back to Granny’s to lay down after we eat. Should I bring anything back with me?” He asked, knowing his mom probably hadn’t eaten since last night.

“I’ll be okay.”

“Ma…” Henry chided, “When was the last time you ate?”

“I had some cereal before.” She hadn’t really been able to get herself to eat much of anything since last night. And even then she’d had a hard time keeping it down.

“That’s not nearly enough. You need to eat more.” Mary Margaret stated from her seat.

“I’ll pick something up on my way back to the Inn, okay?” The question was directed at Henry, but both Henry and Mary Margaret nodded in ascent.

Emma looked at Mary Margaret, hoping that her mother could read her mind and the thoughts she was trying to make very clear. ‘Take care of my son.’ Mary Margaret understood and tried to convey that she would.

“Go on. Henry and I have some catching up to do.” She waved Emma away, recognizing the longer Emma stayed with them the more she’d want to stay with her son.

Emma met Henry’s eyes and stepped forward to kiss him on the forehead, “You need anything you call me. Okay. Anything.”

“I will.” He promised.

After saying goodbye again she left the diner. She saw David was still on the phone with whomever he was talking to. “Hey, David. Need a ride to Mifflin street?”

David disconnected his call and looked at Emma in surprise, “How did you know?”

Emma wiggled her own cellphone in front of him. “You’re not the only one that gets phone calls when things go wrong. I mean, I am the Sherriff around here aren’t I?’

David couldn’t help but smile, “Yes, yes you are.”

“Come on, the Bug’s parked just around the block.”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When David and Emma arrived at the scene of the abduction there were already several people around. Mother Superior, or Blue as she went by these days, was there with a few other fairies. Leroy and a tall rotund man that Emma had never met were talking together. Hook was standing off to the side with Mr. Smee.

David went to talk with Leroy and the man Emma was unfamiliar with while she walked towards Killian. “What happened?”

“Apparently there were several break ins on this block. One of the break ins resorted in an abduction.” Hook answered as he looked around at the people huddled inside their gates and many people looking out into the street from their homes.

“The people around here are a little frightened. Before today there haven’t been targeted attacks like this. And not during the day.” Smee offered as he bowed his head a little to Emma. “Mr. Smee at your service.”

None of this sat right with her. She looked around at all the commotion and met Hook’s eyes. Distraction. This was all a distraction.

Just up the road from all these houses and the sight of the abduction was Regina’s house.

“Regina…” Emma breathed out the woman’s name and took off at a run towards 108 Mifflin street. Praying that she would find Regina safe and sound in her own home, completely annoyed at the disturbance Emma was about to cause.

 _‘Please….’_ Emma thought desperately as she felt her heart race against her rib cage beneath her chest. ‘ _Please be okay. Please.’_

**End Chapter Seven**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 8**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“So, how is school?” Mary Margaret tried for what felt like the hundredth time to get Henry to talk to her. The boy was closed off and had said no more than a dozen words to her since they sat down to have brunch. She knew that this was going to be hard. She just hadn’t realized how hard it was going to be.

“Good.”

Great, she thought, make that a baker’s dozen words.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Emma hopped over the white fence of Regina’s property as if it weren’t even there. She barely even flinched when she landed on her bad leg. Her adrenaline surged as she pushed herself to run faster.

  
David and Killian were several yards behind her with Mr. Smee and Leroy lagging behind them.

“Regina!” Emma yelled as she banged roughly on the door. She’d tried opening it but it was locked. “Regina, open the door. Regina!” Emma continued to yell, she was going to wait only a few more seconds before she went ahead and got the door open whether Regina was on the other side or not.

The men behind her made it to the gate just in time to see her knock over the potted plant and find a hide-a-key under it. She knew she’d need to replace the pottery but right now she didn’t care. She used the key to open the door and rushed into Regina’s house.

She sensed something the second she stepped over the threshold. There was someone here, and they weren’t Regina.

Emma’s hand moved to her waist, feeling the impression of her gun beneath her jacket.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Mary Margaret sighed, deciding she was going to take a break from trying to get Henry to talk to her. He was as stubborn as his mother and grandfather. He was only going to open up about what was bothering him when he was ready and the more time she spent trying to force it out of him would only cause them both to become more frustrated.

“Well, things here have started to settle in again. Your mom is doing better. Much better.”

That seemed to catch Henry’s attention, although he tried to pretend that he wasn’t interested. Mary Margaret knew otherwise. He was riveted on every word she said now. But he hadn’t answered her or commented. He stared back down at his food and pushed it around his plate.

“Your mom explained what was happening with her, didn’t she?” Henry just barely nodded his head in the affirmative. “I am sorry we had to keep you away Henry. It was…for the best.”

“No. It wasn’t.” Henry mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?” Mary Margaret had heard him speak but couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“Nothing.” He mumbled again.

“Look at me when you’re speaking, Henry.” Mary Margaret chided, her frustration starting to get the best of her.

Henry begrudgingly looked up from his plate and met Mary Margaret’s eyes defiantly. “No. It wasn’t what was _best_. Not for me. And not for my mom. It was what was best for _you_.” Henry’s voice started to rise. “That doesn’t mean that’s what is best for everyone. That just means it’s the easiest for you!”

“Henry…keep your voice down!” Mary Margaret’s eyes shifted around the diner and noticed several eyes looking at them with renewed interest now.

“Why? So no one can hear that you were wrong?”

“Henry!” Mary Margaret’s own voice deepened and became more authoritative.

But Henry didn’t heed the warning bells that were ringing in his mind, “You’re trying to act like everything’s normal. Like you can come back into my life and just pick up where you left off.”

Ruby came over to the table as fast as she could after noticing the raised voices at this table, “Henry, what’s going on?”

Henry grabbed the edge of the table, “Well, you can’t! I don’t want you to! I hate you for what you’ve done. I hate you and grandpa! I _hate_ you.” Henry’s voice lowered as he looked straight into Mary Margaret’s eyes and let his anger and hatred show through for the woman who he used to respect and love.

“Henry! That’s enough!” Ruby admonished, seeing the way Snow physically recoiled at Henry’s distaste for her.

Henry looked at Ruby and then at Mary Margaret who was trying to keep her tears from falling. “I just wanted to eat my lunch and go back to the Inn and get away from her.” He explained to Ruby. “But she wouldn’t stop talking.” He pressed his hand against his forehead. His migraine starting to bother him even more now that he was upset. “She wouldn’t stop talking…” His voice was softer as he repeated himself.

“Ruby, I can handle it from here.” Mary Margaret dismissed Ruby with a reassuring nod.

Ruby didn’t want to walk away but she did, and picked up Mary Margaret’s empty plate as she walked away.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

  
“Emma!” David called out as he jumped up the three porch steps. He was inches away from the doorway when the door slammed closed and locked, keeping him and Killian outside.

Emma turned to the door as it reverberated with the force of David and Killian both pounding on it. “Emma! Emma!” David screamed, leaning back to try and kick the door down. But it wouldn’t budge.

Emma felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as she turned slowly towards the open space of the foyer. Regina wasn’t here. The person watching her wasn’t her wif—the mother of her son.

“Show yourself.” Emma challenged as she stepped further into the house fighting off the recognition of the house and its design. It was the house that she and Henry lived in with Regina in her fake memories. It was always here. It was always Storybrooke that held the answers to her questions. It would always be Storybrooke.

“Emma!” The worry in David’s voice was growing.

“David…someone’s here.” Emma pressed her cheek against her shoulder, but kept her eyes peeled into the house, hoping to warn the man that someone was in the house with her. It would make his actions more frenzied and less controlled, but she needed back up in here. Not standing ten feet away outside the house.

There was a decidedly cold chill blowing through the house suddenly. Emma tried to stop herself from shivering at the feel of it. Goosebumps rose against her uncovered skin and she stepped further away from the door, clearing it so the cavalry outside could knock it in off its hinges.

“Find something to break it down!” Killian ordered of the people who were congregating outside the door.

“The windows.” David waved Leroy and Little John towards the windows.

“They won’t get in.” The voice was low, distorted, like the voices in horror movies where the killer changed their voices to hide their identity.

“No, because you wanted me alone.” And they were powerful; powerful enough to break into Regina’s house. Emma knew for a fact that Regina kept her home guarded with protection spells. Those spells were obviously broken by the ominous voice taunting Emma.

There was a deep demon like laugh, it bounced off the walls and echoed around Emma. “Such arrogance.”

Emma kept looking around, trying to keep her back towards a wall at all times as she scanned every nook and cranny of the hallway and shadows along the half circular stairwell. “Well, I figured out where you’d be didn’t I?” Emma asked the empty air around her.

There was silence. Emma smirked. She stood just before the open doorway to the living room. “Not as smart as you think.”

“Ever think that this was the plan all along? Distract the brave souls of Storybrooke while I sent others after what I really wanted?” Emma felt the warm breath of air against the side of her neck and her hand and body reacted on instinct.

She grabbed her gun and spun around to shoot the person that was standing behind her. Only they were gone and she fired her gun at nothing but smoke.

“Fuck…” Emma cursed as she stood, holding her gun, her eyes staring into the shattered mirror across the length of the living room.

“Damn it, Emma! Emma, are you alright!?” David screamed, his face red.

“Swan!?” Both Hook and David were a yelling mess as Emma allowed herself a moment to calm down, her heart racing in her chest.

The crash of the door being broken down had her jumping and turning around to see Charming wielding his sword, Hook his pistol and Leroy a pickax.

Emma blinked at them as she slowly lowered her gun. The mysterious enemies voice echoing in her ears.

_“Distract the brave souls of Storybrooke while I sent others after what I really wanted.”_

“Emma, what happened? Where are they?”

Emma ignored David’s question as the men of Storybrooke stepped into the room house and started sweeping it for any enemies.

Emma’s eyes widened, “We have to go. Now. This was all a distraction.”

“From what?”

Emma didn’t know, but she was afraid that they were all going to find out very soon.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Gotten everything off your chest?” Snow asked as she stared at Henry and saw how his chest rose and fell rapidly with each ragged breath he took.

Henry ignored her again, staring off just to the right of her shoulder so he wouldn’t have to look at her. He crossed his arms and leaned heavily into his seat. “Yeah.”

“Good. Now finish your lunch and we can get you back to the Inn. You won’t have to see more of me than you want.”

Henry raised an eyebrow at how easy that was to get her to agree, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t you yelling back at me?”

“Is that something you remember me doing often?” Mary Margaret wondered aloud, hoping that his memories didn’t have her character so untrue to who she was.

“I guess not.” Henry thought it was weird that she’d phrase the question like that, but everything about his life was weird right now.

“I understand why you’re angry. I know that you don’t understand the reasons for what your grandfather and I have done. But what you have to know is that this hasn’t been easy for us either. Regina was not the only one to lose you and your mother during all of this.”

Henry felt his anger start to dissipate at a rapid rate as he realized how sad his grandmother looked. She had a point. But he was still mad. And he wasn’t going to apologize. She was still lying about something. He just didn’t know what. But she was. He had his own super power when it came to lie detecting just like Emma. And something had been bothering him about all of this from the moment they arrived at the Inn.

“She’s my mom.”

Mary Margaret sighed, “I know.”

“I’ve missed her. She…she missed so much.”

Mary Margaret felt her heart constrict, “I know, Henry. And I’m sorry.”

Henry played with the material of his shirt sleeve. “Will she get better?”

“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that everything goes back to normal for you and your mom, okay?”

Henry didn’t realize that she hadn’t really answered his question. He just focused on her promise and felt hope blossom in his chest that things might just get back to normal soon.

The door behind them opened and the bell rang announcing new patrons’ entrance.

“I do not see how you can consider coffee breakfast.” Henry didn’t recognize the voice behind him, but by the way that his grandmother’s eyes widened and her breath hitched, he knew she did.

He turned around, leaning his arm on the back of the booth he was in. The diner around them got quiet very suddenly. The other conversations that had been taking place suddenly stopped and there wasn’t even the sound of people eating their food.

“It has served me well in the past. I just…am unaccustomed to having breakfast alone.” The voice was devoid of the mirth the other had carried with its statement. It was bitter and void of life in a way that tore at those who heard it and inferred why such a simple statement would hurt so much.

It had been a year. A long very stressful year for him, but he would know that voice in any crowded room.

“Mom…” He whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear it himself.

Henry’s eyes widened and his heart pounded roughly against his chest twice before it seemingly stopped all together.

There, in the doorway with a tall gentleman touching her arm comfortingly was his mom. Henry could do nothing more than stare at her. She looked good. Her hair was a little longer than he last remembered. And she was wearing a blue shirt and black jacket. He’d gotten her the shirt for her birthday two years ago. He’d thought she didn’t like it because she never seemed to wear it. But here she was, wearing it, and smiling softly at the man standing next to her.

The look in her eyes, he knew that look. It was the kind of look he saw his mom have on her face when she stared at Emma. That…well that didn’t make sense. Why was she staring lovingly at the man beside her? Why was she touching him? And why the hell was **he** touching _her_? Didn’t he know that she was married!?

“Well now, you have us.” Robin smiled charmingly at Regina, turning to his left to stare down over his shoulder, “Doesn’t she Roland?”

Henry watched as a little boy with black hair stepped up between his mom and the man she was touching. The boy smiled brightly up at who Henry assumed was his father. Suddenly his heart started beating again. Roughly.

Henry’s eyes narrowed in at the way that his mom looked at Roland and took a hold of his hand before meeting the strange man’s eyes. He moved on his own accord, his feet had him standing up and moving two steps closer to the group before he could recognize he had gotten up.

Mary Margaret was as quick as she could be and grabbed a hold of Henry’s arm. “Henry…” She hissed, knowing that this was going to cause a lot of trouble with the young man. They hadn’t been able to talk to Regina yet. She hadn’t a clue as to what was about to happen and Snow felt sorry for her. Truly sorry for her. She had seen how devastated Regina was to realize that no one could cross the town line—including her. Thus making it impossible for her to go and find Henry when they’d first gotten back.

Regina had jumped in head first to finding the person responsible for the curse so that they could stop them and she could go find Henry—and Emma. Now, Snow wasn’t sure how the woman was going to react to Henry’s particular reaction to her having a boyfriend. Mary Margaret would like to think that normally he would have been happy for Regina. But with his memories, what he was now seeing was his mother cheating on his other mom. Drama was bound to unfold in the wake of it.

“Henry…wait, please.” Mary Margaret was desperate for Henry to calm down. He had just begun to do so, and she didn’t want him to say anything that would make everything fall apart around them.

The commotion must have finally caught Regina and Robin’s attention because they were both looking towards them. Robin didn’t recognize Henry, but Regina did. Immediately. And the way that her face slackened and her eyes filled with tears was enough to make Mary Margaret feel sick to her stomach.

“Get off me!” Henry didn’t pull his arm away; he didn’t want to jostle his grandma while she was pregnant.

“Henry, remember what your mom said!” Snow added desperately.

Henry turned to glare at his grandma. “Yeah, I remember. I also don’t remember her saying anything about my mom having a new family!” He tugged his hand free when his grandma’s grip loosened and she looked guilty at him. His eyes widened, “Forgot to mention that part to her didn’t you?” He was back to being angry with her again. “Would have been nice to know that you’d let her replace us.” Replace _him_. He didn’t see another woman with his mom, no. He saw a man and a little boy.

His mom had replaced **_him_**. There was a new little boy that she was smiling at and holding hands with and about to have breakfast with. She wouldn’t be having breakfast with him anymore or holding his hand. Not that he really enjoyed her holding his hand anymore. He was thirteen after all. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have breakfast with her. He loved having breakfast with her and talking to her about school and when she’d help him with homework that was too difficult for him. He missed that. He missed her. And here she was. She didn’t miss him. She’d found a new family and a new baby boy to make love her.

He wondered bitterly if she’d leave this new family too. Or was it just him and Emma that were the ‘lucky’ ones?

“Mary Margaret…” Henry turned around and saw that his mom was now standing a foot away from him, looking at Henry and her mom.

He thought it was weird for his mom to call her mother by her name and not mom, but he didn’t focus on it. “Regina…” Mary Margaret smiled nervously. “Have you seen David today?”

Regina swallowed thickly, as she tried her best not to look at Henry. “No, I can’t say that I have.”

“Ah, uhm, Regina this is…”

Henry turned fully to his mom, arms crossed, “Henry.”

Mary Margaret sighed exasperated. There was nothing she could really do about Henry’s attitude. She was trying to do her best not to blame him for it. She really was. But her patience was wearing thin.

“Henry…” Regina breathed her son’s name like it was a prayer. She cleared her throat and had to stop herself from pulling him into her arms. She recognized the scowl on his face. He was angry. Very angry. She wondered what it was that Mary Margaret had done to get him this angry and why he was alone with her to begin with. When had they come back? Where was Emma? How long were they in town? Why hadn’t she been called immediately? How could they not tell her that Henry was back in town. How could Emma do that to her? How could Snow, after everything! Regina’s hand fisted at her side as she controlled the angry onslaught of magic.

“His mother was just looking to speak with you.” Mary Margaret supplied, without saying Emma’s name, hoping that if she played this off the right way she could fix whatever problems this was going to arise.

Regina turned her eyes away from Henry, though it was a difficult task. “Was she?” It made her feel a little better knowing that they had at least tried to get in touch with her about Henry and Emma’s arrival back in town.

“Yes, her and David left to see you nearly a half an hour ago. She and Henry only just arrived very early this morning from New York.”

“I’ve been out for most of the morning.” Regina explained, just barely glancing over her shoulder at Robin and Roland. Robin was speaking with one of his merry men who was at the counter, looking like he was going to come over to her any second.

Henry scuffed as he realized who his mom was looking at.

Regina snapped her eyes back at him and raised an eyebrow at his haughtiness. “I’m sorry that I missed them.” Regina realized, slowly, that Henry’s anger was not directed merely at Mary Margaret but at her as well. Though that had to be a mistake, didn’t it? How could he be angry with her when he didn’t remember her?

“As if.” Henry looked away from Regina, trying not to stare at the little boy sitting next to someone at the counter chatting with them as the man his mom had come in with stepped up to stand beside her. He stared darkly at the hand that rested on his mom’s shoulder.

“Mary Margaret….” Regina said Snow’s Storybrooke name with such hope and sudden distress that it tore through the hearts of many of those watching the scene.

“Is everything okay, here?” Robin offered a nervous smile, looking between the adults to see if they could catch him up quickly.

Henry couldn’t stand the sight of him standing so close to his mom. Or the way she unconsciously seemed to lean into him for comfort. He snarled a little as his teeth ground together, trying to convince himself to stay quiet. That it was for the best. It’d been explained to him. He couldn’t say what he wanted to because anything he said could put his mom’s health at risk. And as angry as he was at her right now he loved her and wanted her to get better so that she realized she wasn’t supposed to be with this tall dark and handsome nobody, but with him and Emma.

“Everything’s fine darling. Why don’t you see to, Roland and get a table?”

 _Darling…_ Henry felt sick suddenly as the weight of the situation finally caved in on him. He needed to stay quiet. He needed to stay quiet. But then he saw how Robin’s hand trailed down Regina’s arm and he squeezed her hand softly and smiled at her with his big doe eyes. And everything he was trying to do was gone. The pain in his head was searing through him as his dull nails cut into his palm.

“Yeah, why don’t you get the hell out of here and find someone else to touch why you’re at it?!” He snapped and bore his eyes into Robin with deadly intent. “Because you better get your filthy stealing hands off my mom before I do it for you!” Henry took a step towards Robin and Regina as if he was going to go through on his threat.

Mary Margaret wasn’t going to test just how willing Henry was to fight a man twice his size for his mother’s honor. She grabbed him by both shoulders and held him back which gave Regina enough time to realize exactly what her son had just said, and how he’d said it. She’d recognize that tone anywhere. It was hers. It was often how she spoke when addressing someone beneath her while the Evil Queen or as Mayor.

Mom. He’d called her his mom.

Regina felt like her world was spinning on its axis far too fast. She swallowed convulsively afraid that the spinning was going to make her sick. Henry remembered. Henry remembered and was trying to defend her honor against Robin. Her son remembered who she was. The tears that she had been fighting off since she saw Henry standing over here with Snow fell freely.

Henry remembered who she was. He remembered.

 _Oh god_ …Regina covered her mouth to keep from sobbing.

“Henry…” Regina tried to speak, to say something to him. But she was so overwhelmed that her voice broke around his name as she stared at him.

Henry looked away from Mary Margaret, and looked into her eyes, his own filled with tears that he was trying to keep from falling. His chin quivered and he shook his head violently from side to side.

She wasn’t supposed to remember him. She was someone else. She didn’t know who she was or what she was doing to him. What she would end up doing to Emma’s already broken heart. She didn’t know…but that didn’t make him feel any better. It didn’t make it any less real to remember how he’d cried himself to sleep at night after she’d left them. Or how sad and broken Emma had become when she’d left. Or how he’d treated Emma, blaming her for his mother’s disappearance and abandonment. It didn’t change anything. Not if she remembered or she didn’t. She still hadn’t been there and she still had a new family. She’d still replaced him. It would just hurt more if she’d done so knowingly.

“Henry…” Regina tried again, her voice soft and consoling. Her hands itched at her side to touch him. To hold him to her. But she recalled how angry he was, and knew that if she tried to hug him and he pulled away from her, that she’d break. She couldn’t break now. She’d made it this far. She needed to make it farther. Just a little farther and she could have her son back and finally be happy.

“Have fun with your new family.” Henry spat, his tears finally broke over his eye lashes and he pushed his way past Regina and Robin and ran out the door.

Regina stared after Henry in shock. What had just happened? She took a step forward only to be pulled back by a hand on her shoulder.

“Let him go.”

“You cannot ask me to do that again.” Regina growled, how could Mary Margaret ask her to do that again?

The school teacher bowed her head, “There’s something you need to know about Henry’s memories, before you go after him.”

“What about them must I know?” This was becoming ridiculous. “He remembers me. Isn’t that enough?”

Mary Margaret smiled sadly at her, “It’s not that simple.”

“Then _simplify_ if for me.” Regina growled, the longer she spent talking to Mary Margaret in riddles the farther and farther away her son got from her…again.

Just as Snow opened her mouth to explain the situation, the bell above the door jingled and pulled their attention towards it.

“Mary Margaret,” Emma called as she walked into the diner, her eyes looking out the windows down the street she’d just sent David down to run after Henry. “What happened? Why’d David have to go running after Henr…” Emma finally faced forward and noticed the woman standing beside Mary Margaret with widening eyes. She swallowed as she felt like all the air in her lungs had just been pulled from her by an unknown force.

 _‘God, she’s gorgeous.’_ Emma found herself thinking as she took stock of how Regina had changed in their year apart. She looked good. Very good, considering the situation they found themselves in.

“Regina…” Emma felt her heart skip a beat as her eyes locked with Regina’s for the first time in over a year. She felt like she was going to fall. That her legs were going to give out beneath her and leave her sprawled out on the floor looking like an idiot.

She had been looking for Regina for a year. She hadn’t stopped. Every free moment of her time she spent trying to find the allusive wife that left her and Henry. Except, Regina wasn’t her wife. But really, that didn’t matter. Not right now. Not when she could look into Regina’s eyes and feel like she was _finally_ home. All her hard work had finally amounted to the end goal.

She found Regina. Regina was right in front of her and…

“Emma.” Regina greeted, hardly showing any break in her irritation at all at seeing Emma for the first time in twelve months.

…And Regina didn’t even care.

**End Chapter Eight**

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 9**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Mary Margaret cringed as she stood between Emma and Regina. She saw the way that Emma’s eyes had lit up at the sight of Regina. It wasn’t every day that a mother saw a look of utter love and devotion shine as clear as day in their child’s eyes for your arch enemy.

It also wasn’t every day that a mother also witnessed heartbreak just as quickly as she’d witnessed joy cross their child’s face.

“You remember?” Regina asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the way that Emma was looking at her. There was something very different in the way she was staring at her. It was unnerving, like the blonde could see into her very soul.

“I know who you are, yes.” Emma nodded once.

“You must be the Savoir.” Robin spoke up, causing Emma’s attention to finally move away from Regina.

The first thing she noticed was that Robin’s hand was resting on Regina’s shoulder and Regina was leaning back into the man. Her shock wasn’t as strong as Henry’s had been because she did have a little warning about Regina’s relationship with him. What she didn’t recognize was how quickly her anger would settle over her and her personal green eyed monster would make itself known.

Emma’s eyes narrowed as she took in the otherwise gentlemanly man, “And you must be the reason Henry ran away.” Any semblance of a smile on the man’s face disappeared. “Tell me, did you think it would be a good idea to rub your relationship with my son’s mother right in his face?”

“Emma!” Snow tried to stop her, but she ignored her.

Emma took a step closer to the couple, her eyes riveted on Robin. “I mean, assuming you were aware of who Henry was, and judging by what I know about Regina, which is a lot, Henry is the first person you’d have learned about. The pictures in her house the first clue that the boy she was talking to was her son.”

“Emma that’s enough!” Regina gave it a shot too, but Emma just ignored them both, stepping close enough to Robin, that Regina had to physically put herself between them.

“And _knowing_ that you **still** had the audacity to step up to his mother, touch her, and probably assert yourself as the man in her life before he could even say a proper hello!” Emma almost tried to reach around Regina’s body to grab at the man who had the decency to back off several steps as she’d continued her rant.

It wasn’t until she felt hands pushing against her shoulders to hold her back that Emma realized Regina was the one touching her. She hated how suddenly her body reacted to memories that weren’t real of how often and desperately she could crave Regina’s touch.

“What in the world has gotten into you, Ms. Swan? Have you lost your mind?!” Regina felt ire settle in her chest at everything Emma had just insinuated. Though, as she thought harder on it, she realized none of the insults had been directed at her. Just towards Robin’s lack of tact in a very delicate situation. A mistake that normally Regina would have been commenting on herself if she weren’t so confused as to why Emma felt she had the right to do so for her. “What right do you have to come in here like this and attack him?”

Emma glared at Regina, stepping away from the woman as her heart cringed inside her chest. “None.” She admitted, sourly. In this reality she had no right to do what she had just done. “But your boyfriend should know better. The last thing Henry needed today was to see you with your new make-shift family.” Was Emma’s snappish reply as she backed away from Regina.

“Emma…this isn’t the place or the time. And Robin doesn’t deserve your hostility.” Mary Margaret said from where she stood just off to the side.

“Whatever…”

Mary Margaret sighed, realizing that Henry and Emma were both having a very similar reaction to this situation. The only problem was that Henry’s reaction fit his age, Emma’s did not.

Though if Mary Margaret were to be honest, if she had walked in on David with another woman hanging over him like Robin had been Regina—in a very un-hanging like way—then she would have resorted to threats and hostility too. It was hard for her to recognize this, because that meant she was recognizing that just twenty four hours ago Emma believed in her hearts of hearts that she was in love with Regina Mills and married to her. Which meant those emotions, that devotion, was as real to Emma as they had been yesterday, whether she had her real memories or not.

Emma forced herself to calm down. She took several deep breaths and turned contritely to Regina. “We need to talk about Henry.”

“Agreed.” Regina didn’t understand anything that was happening. First her son had accused her of having a new family and now so had Emma. She also knew that Emma’s memories were back but that there was something wrong with Henry’s if both Emma’s statements and Mary Margaret’s were to be believed. What confused her the most though, was how Emma and Henry remembered her at all.

“You guys can talk in Granny’s office.” Ruby supplied, hoping that getting them into a private space would help Emma calm down.

“Thanks, Rubes.” Emma waved Regina to walk ahead of her and nearly lost the cool she had just achieved when Robin went to walk with them. “No offense, sir, but you aren’t invited to join us.”

“That isn’t a decision you can make.” Robin challenged as he looked at Regina.

Emma laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh. It was the type of laugh someone did before they committed murder. “And you think you have the right to make it?” Emma fired right back. “This isn’t about you and Regina. This isn’t about you at all. This is about my son and her son. You are not part of this particular equation.”

Robin looked distrustfully at Emma, his mouth opening to tell the blonde he’d just met where she could stick her opinions when he felt Regina’s hand touch his shoulder. There weren’t many people, many women, Robin felt an immediate distaste for, but Emma was proving to be one of the many few. Usually he liked assertive women. Women who stood up for themselves and their belief were his type. Emma, well she was certainly not.

Regina’s palm was flat against Robin’s shoulder, holding him where he was and making him look at her. He noticed that his eyes weren’t the only ones now focusing on the hand. Emma’s gaze was staring at their contact critically.

“Robin, although she is being rather hostile and childish, she is right.” Regina smiled softly at him, “Have breakfast. I shall find you when everything has been mended here.”

Robin sighed, “Very well.” He leaned forward and kissed Regina chastely upon the lips. As they pulled apart he noticed how Emma’s hands were fisted at her sides and her jaw muscles were flexing.

It would appear that he was not the only one interested in the Queen’s heart, and the Savoir was horrible at hiding her jealousy.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Henry! Henry, wait!” Henry looked over his shoulder to see his grandfather chasing after him. With a creased frown he turned back forward and took of running faster. The last thing he wanted right now was to be chastised for his actions. He would deal with the consequences later. Right now he needed to be alone.

He slipped in and out of alleyways and soon he was on the side streets by the warehouses, his grandfather’s voice a distant echo heading in the wrong direction. With a sigh, Henry slowed his gate. He walked along the piers and stared out at the water. The smell of low tide itched his nose as he looked down at the sand and rocks beneath the dock. He jumped off the dock and hid under it. He watched the water lap at the rocks and sat heavily down on one of the larger boulders under the dock. It was covered in moss and seaweed. Uncaringly he remained on it, one of his palms pressed against his forehead as tears fell from his eyes. His head was killing him.

Everything was wrong. Nothing made sense. He was going crazy. Just like both of his moms. That had to be it. That’s why nothing seemed logical and nothing fit together like a puzzle is supposed to. It was like he had pieces of several different puzzles mixed together to make the right image. It was impossible.

A part of him wished that they had never come back to Storybrooke. That they had just left his mom to deal with her issues on her own. Obviously she was happy enough here without him and Emma. And everyone was just letting her move on like their family had never existed. That it was the right thing to do to let Regina just have another family when he and Emma were only a phone call away.

He was angry. Furious. He wanted to hurt someone, maybe even kill them. And in all the years he’d been alive he could never remember being this angry. It was like his heart was just falling into pieces inside his chest and his brain was following, because that headache he had was just getting worse.

“My my what do we have here?”

Henry looked up, almost expecting his grandfather to have found him. But it wasn’t Charming that found him. It was his worst nightmare.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Ruby led Regina and Emma into Granny’s back office quickly, “Sorry for the clutter.” She apologized as she ushered them inside.

“Its fine, Rubes. Thanks.” Emma made her way into the room and to the farthest wall quickly. She was having trouble rationalizing what was happening here. She had known from her parents that Regina was involved with a man from the Enchanted Forest. She also knew that they would have been together for almost seven weeks here in Storybrooke. It was over a month, closer to two months. Emma couldn’t remember a relationship she’d been in—a real one—that lasted a month since being with Neal. If Regina was still with this man, it was serious, and that was what upset Emma.

She was upset because even while knowing that Regina was not her wife, she could not stop herself from being jealous that Regina had ‘moved on’ to a new family. It hurt to see how close they were, that he could touch her publically and she wouldn’t flinch or accuse him of harassing her. It hurt.

God everything hurt.

Ruby closed the door to the office, her expression sympathetic as she watched Emma pace back and forth like a trapped animal, “I’ll be out here if you need me.” Ruby met Regina’s eyes, hoping she conveyed that her presence was being offered to them both.

Regina was surprised to see that the reassurance was being given to her as well. She knew the werewolf held a grudging respect for her now that she was truly trying to change. It was still strange to know that she had people on her side. People who when treated well would not betray her to further their own causes.

Regina nodded to Ruby, the only offer of thanks she could muster.

Once the door was closed and the two women were left alone, Regina’s focus shifted to Emma. The ire she felt towards the blonde for her rude behavior freezing in her veins at the sudden worry that overcame her.

Emma was physically trying to calm herself down. She was shaking out her hands and cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders as she paced quickly back and forth.

Around Emma there were sparks of white magic firing like a fritzing transformer.

Regina recognized the symptoms. When she was under a great deal of emotional stress when she was first learning to use her magic, she had trouble controlling it. But at least in those moments she was aware of her loss of control. It seemed Emma was completely unaware of her magical melt down.

Emma felt her body flush with her anger. Her hands fisted at her sides as she paced. Her face red and brow creased and beginning to develop beads of sweat. Her nostrils flared as she shook away the memories that kept popping into her head. All sound bites of Regina telling her how much she loved her, how she was her only one, that she and Henry were the most important things in her life.

That wasn’t true anymore. Emma wasn’t even on the scale of things that mattered to Regina.

How could she be when the woman had ~~found someone else~~ —found someone?

Emma knew she was being unfair. Her jealousy and anger were irrationally being directed at Regina and at Robin when neither of them deserved it. She should be happy for Regina. She should be happy that Regina found someone she could be happy with.

But she wasn’t.

She was in pain.

She was angry and a part of her recognized that she was also in Savior mode. Not twenty minutes ago she was willing to rush into an unknown situation against someone powerful enough to incapacitate the most powerful witch Emma knew, to protect Regina. To protect her ~~wife—~~ NO! No…Regina was not her wife. She was just Henry’s mother. And maybe, if she could get herself to calm down and talk to Regina, she could find out if they were even still friends.

“Emma…” Emma’s eyes shot to Regina at the sound of her voice, “You need to calm down.” Regina hedged slowly as she approached Emma with great caution.

Emma’s eyes flashed a brilliant white light for a moment, before it faded.

“Calm down?” Emma’s breath was short as her nails cut into her palms, “How **_dare_** you!” Emma’s voice rose, “How dare you tell me to calm down after what you did!”

Regina blinked, startled at the accusation. “What is it I’ve done, Emma?” Regina chose her words carefully as she kept her hands loose, just in case she’d need to deflect Emma’s magic if it escaped her, much like Regina’s own magic had when she fought against her mother and pushed her into the mirror.

“You did this to me!” Emma nearly sobbed.

Regina frowned, “What did I do?”

Emma glared, noticing how Regina was circling wide around her, keeping distance between them. “I’m…I’m so _angry_ at you.”

Regina rolled her eyes, Emma’s refusal to answer her question becoming annoying. “How is that any different from before?”

Emma snarled, “It’s different because I’m mad at you for something you didn’t do. I just think you’ve done it.”

“Emma, please, you need to calm down.” Regina insisted again, noticing how the magic was firing more rapidly and growing around the blonde. She pointed at Emma’s body, trying to make the blonde see what she was doing.

Emma followed Regina’s gesture and stared down at herself. Surprise colored her face as she saw a force field of white electricity formed around her hands and chest. She recalled how the electricity had done something very strange back in Dr. Diggs’ office when she’d been attacked. But there wasn’t supposed to be magic in this world? How was it that she had used her magic in New York against Dr. Diggs? Thinking about it Emma remembered, vaguely, how there was a power surge when she was giving birth to Henry and how many of the bad foster homes she’d been in had electrical problems. Had that been her?

“See, just close your eyes.” Regina instructed as she took a step towards Emma. Emma, surprisingly, closed her eyes immediately. “Loosen your hands. Take several deep breaths. Calm your heartbeat.” Regina took a step closer with each instruction, astonished to see Emma following each command without complaint. By the time Regina was at Emma’s side the magic had settled but Emma was still tense. Regina reached out slowly to touch Emma’s shoulder, but the blonde withdrew from her.

Emma’s eyes flashed open and she stared at Regina. The brunette’s hand was slowly moving back to her side as she attempted to conceal the pain of Emma’s rejection. “Sorry…” Emma offered lamely, “It’s just better if you don’t touch me. My emotions are out of whack.” She laughed humorlessly, tears welling in her eyes. “Everything is just so broken inside me.”

Regina’s eyes widened, a pang of hurt touching her heart at the sudden defeat upon Emma’s face.

Emma’s body began to slump into itself.

“Emma, what is going on?” Regina inquired once again, her voice stern. She was not asking to merely have said the question. She required an answer. Now. “Why does Henry know who I am? Why do you know who I am for that matter?”

Emma took a deep breath and barely lifted her eyes to look into Regina’s.

“Funny story. That’s really not so funny, to be honest.” Emma started, feeling uncomfortable in her own skin.

“The point, Ms. Swan. **_Now_**.”

Emma cringed, “Henry thinks you’ve left us for Robin and his son because the memories he has thanks to your spell had us together, romantically, as in married for ten years with a life of memories of the both of us raising him.” Emma said it all in one breath, racing through it as she realized she’d need to breathe to continue with the story and stop Regina from saying anything.

Though, by the shocked expression on Regina’s face and the way she had involuntarily stepped away from her at the notion of them being romantically together and married, she suspected the witch wouldn’t know what to say if given the chance.

“When the spell ended and we had to live out an actual year we were in New York. My memories started to come back in nightmares and I couldn’t remember specifics about the fake life you’d given us, making me think I was sick. Turns out I might be suffering from PTSD or something. For real, not just some fake excuse by idiot doctors. Anyhow, it wasn’t Alzheimer’s so I was put in therapy and the therapist I was actually seeing was a flying monkey who tried to kill me.” Regina’s eyes widened, her mouth opening and closing as she was unable to find what she wanted to say, too busy absorbing what Emma was telling her. “Hook came, brought us here and when I reached the town line your spell got stronger, but so did my old memories and it gave me a wicked head ache that still hasn’t gone away because I have two lives. Fifty years of memories and only thirty that are real.”

“Henry…” Regina whispered his name, finally understanding why he had been so upset with her. How he could remember her and still look at her with such awful disdain.

Emma sighed, knowing Regina’s first concern would be their son, “Henry thinks that you abandoned us, because that’s what the fake memories had you do. They had you up and leave us. So, he thinks you left us to start a new family.”

“That isn’t what I’ve done! I would never give up on Henry! I’ve been trying to find a way to leave Storybrooke for the last two months!” Regina insisted, angered at the notion that she would give up on her son and take on another family. As if she could ever replace Henry.

It didn’t help that Emma’s tone was bitter as she spoke of her relationship with Robin and Roland. It just put Regina into a defensive state.

Emma shook her head, “I tried to explain to him that you didn’t mean it. That you were suffering from your own psychological break with reality. Which is why you wouldn’t remember the memories he has and why you might recognize him but not the significance of who he was to you. It’s a sound plan. Dr. Hopper thinks it’ll work until we can find a way to replicate the memory potion I took.”

“You spoke with the grasshopper before you spoke to me about this?!” Regina’s ire returned full force as she stepped menacingly towards Emma.

Emma wasn’t about to stand down. She was done feeling vulnerable and weak. She wasn’t that unsure woman she’d been while still in Storybrooke last year. She knew who she was and just how strong she could be. Even now she was still learning just how strong she could be as she faced the woman who held her heart whether she wanted it or not.

“Yeah? Well, I didn’t know if you’d done this to me on purpose or not. Your own sick little way to hurt me and make sure Henry remembered you and hated me. Thinking I was the reason you left us. So no, I didn’t ask you!” Emma spit out, leaning forward when Regina got into her face, her eyes ablaze and lip lifted in a clear snarl. She didn’t believe a word of what she was saying. She had known that Regina couldn’t have known. She couldn’t possibly have done this to them. Not knowingly at least.

Emma watched as her words sunk in and there, in the recesses of Regina’s eyes, flashed the minute bit of hurt.

“I would never do that to Henry.”

 _Right, but you’d do it to me,_ Emma thought bitterly. “Real, reassuring, Regina.” Emma challenged, noticing she had Regina backpedaling.

Regina calmed her anger as best she could. Dealing with Emma was like dealing with a petulant child sometimes. “I was never meant to be part of your memories. Either of your memories. As part of the curse I was supposed to be eradicated from both of your memories. I don’t know what could have happened to give you the life that you received. That wasn’t what I wanted for either of you.”

There was a pleading tone to Regina’s voice that had Emma considering that Regina really didn’t know how this had all happened. Not that she believed Regina had. She had just used it to make Regina back off and it had worked.

“I’m working around this situation the best I can. It’s not going to be easy. Henry thinks that David and Mary Margaret are your parents. When he looks at them, he doesn’t actually SEE them.”

That intrigued Regina, “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know! You’re the resident magic expert. I was hoping you’d know.” Emma was glad that Regina wasn’t focusing on the fact that Mary Margaret and David were her parents in this fake reality Henry had going around in his head.

“We need to talk. About everything. But not here. It’s not safe here.” Regina was looking around the room as if she knew someone was watching them, or capable of it.

“Ah, speaking of safe. Your house isn’t safe either.” Emma cringed at the thought of the door that was broken down, leaving it even more unsafe.

Regina’s head shot back to Emma, her eyebrow raised, “Oh and how would you know that?”

“Because I was just there and some weirdo with powerful magic threatened me in it and kept everyone outside before disappearing without a trace. If you call green and black smoke without a trace.”

Regina’s eyes widened, her jaw slackening the slightest bit, “And you’re alive….”

“As far as I know.” Emma looked down at herself as if to check to see if she’d been injured without knowing it.

Regina narrowed her eyes at Emma and moved closer to the blonde. Emma’s eyes widened of their own accord at how close Regina was. The brunette grabbed Emma by the lapels of her jacket and for a moment Emma considered the thought of Regina kissing her. She had memories of this exact scene from her fake life and from fantasies in her real one.

  
Regina’s hands slid slowly up the lengths of her arms and up onto her shoulders. Emma couldn’t keep her eyes open, her body’s response uncontrollable. She felt goosebumps spread over her skin and she couldn’t help the moan as Regina’s fingers brushed over the column of her neck.

There was a deft tug and suddenly the heat of Regina’s body was gone. Emma was left swaying a few steps as her eyes fluttered open. Regina was holding what looked like a tracking device in her hand.

Coming out of her haze, Emma reached up to the top of her jacket where Regina had pulled the bug from. She glared at the device as Regina dropped it and raised her foot to stomp on it.

“Wait!” Emma rushed forward and grabbed Regina’s hips, a part of her wanted to pull her closer but the rational part of her quickly pushed Regina a step away from her but she’d already destroyed the device.

Regina recognized the scheming smile on Emma’s face too late. It was the same look Henry had often when he was concocting up one way or another to make her life more difficult. Of course it was Emma who he’d inherited the look from.

Straightening out her clothes Regina composed herself as she tilted her head to the side, expectantly.

“We could have used that to our advantage.” Emma explained exasperated.

The door was thrown open and David stood in the doorway looking harried and out of breath. Both women felt their hearts sink at the sight of him.

“Henry…” They both whispered.

David frowned, “I can’t find him.” He hated to admit it but he would need their help to find him before night fell. There was a curfew that everyone in Storybrooke was happy to abide by if it kept their families safe. Henry wouldn’t’ know that and the last thing they needed was for him to find himself in a situation he didn’t know how to cope with.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Henry stumbled up the sharp incline of the sand dunes. He blinked a few times, confused. The tide had started to come up a little while ago. His hiding place on the boulder under the docks was becoming a little too dangerous. Looking up at the sky he couldn’t understand how it was so late already. Hadn’t it just been morning? His head wasn’t hurting as much as it had been anymore. But he was still a little confused. Had he blacked out?

Emma had been suffering from black outs for a while before she’d gone to the doctors. He knew what they entailed and he couldn’t figure out how he’d lost several hours of his day. Had he really been in that deep thought?

He put his hand on his chest, as if feeling something strange within it. With a creased brow he walked back up onto the piers and slowly made his way back towards the center of town. As he reached the factory district of the city he heard people calling his name. Sighing, he realized that he probably had made everyone worry just a little too much.

He’d have to face those consequences he’d been avoiding sooner or later. Stuffing his hands back into his pockets he made his way towards one of the many voices calling his name.

Unseen by anyone else his eyes glowed green for the quickest of seconds and an evil smile spread across his mouth before the look vanished and his eyes returned to their normal color.

Somewhere off in the far distance Zelena cackled with the victory that was upon the horizon.

**End Chapter Nine**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 10**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“I said I was sorry. I was just by the piers. I didn’t mean to lose track of time. I needed to get away.” Henry whined, but he couldn’t meet his mother’s eyes. He stood in their room at the Inn staring down at the ground, the tips of his shoes and knees of his pants covered in mud.

“You scared me half to death!” Emma admonished as she watched Henry shrink at her tone.

Downstairs Emma knew that Regina was pacing the length of the common area wanting to say the same things to their son. With the cover they had going she needed to stay downstairs and out of sight. At least for now, which Emma knew wasn’t sitting well with the older woman.

Emma had asked Ruby to keep an eye on Regina, not exactly trusting Robin Hood, no matter how trustworthy everyone else seemed to think he was. She didn’t know him. She didn’t like that they didn’t know him before they went back to the Enchanted Forest. It was just too convenient for Rumple to be the only one to really know him.

“You had me asking half the town to help look for you. There’s a city wide curfew set Henry. You weren’t just putting yourself in harm’s way but others as well!”

Henry looked up, just the slightest bit. “What dangers?”

Emma faltered, realizing her mistake. “There have been a lot of robberies lately. A few people have gotten hurt. As a precaution everyone’s been told to stay in and lock the doors after a certain time.”

“So that the only people out are the people doing it and they can be caught.” Henry nodded his head, understanding now. He’d seen that done in TV shows enough times to think he could actually understand what was going on. Though it only made him feel more ashamed. “I am sorry mom. I just…” He sighed and pulled roughly at his hair as he went and sat heavily on the bed in the room. “You didn’t see them! It was disgusting.” He growled at just the memory of seeing Regina and Robin together. “She has a new lover, a _man_!” He said that with such distaste Emma was a little worried that after this ordeal was over he wouldn’t be able to handle his mom being with anyone else.

“Is it really that he’s a man or is it just that he’s not me that’s bothering you?” She knew it probably was bothering him, at least a little bit, but what was really bothering him was Roland. Not Robin. It was that Robin and Roland came as a package deal and gave Regina another little boy, another son to raise. “Or is it his son that’s really bothering you?”

Henry’s shoulders started to shake as his tears started. His grip was tight on his pant legs before he fisted his hands and hit them into his knees twice. Emma was quick to grab them and pull Henry against her shoulder. The feeling of his tears against her chest made her own eyes water. She hated the pain that this was causing Henry. It wasn’t fair to him to have to deal with this. He’d already been through so much. She hated that this would have to be added onto the growing pile of issues he’d faced before he turned fourteen.

“It’s not fair.” Henry cried as he clutched at Emma.

Emma squeezed her eyes closed and forced the lump in her throat away, “No. No it’s not. But we’ll be okay Henry. No matter what.”

Emma wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince Henry or herself.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“How is he?” Regina asked as she shot up from where she had been sitting, waiting for Emma to return after speaking with Henry.

Ruby was standing in the corner of the room talking with Charming and Snow White. Hook was standing off in the corner of the large room, trying to stay away from everyone. Robin Hood stood just behind Regina. They presented a pretty picture. They almost suited each other but no matter how pretty they looked together, it still made her sick to her stomach. Emma wished she’d kept her jacket on, instead of leaving it and the listening device, upstairs in the room with Henry sleeping. She felt vulnerable and naked under Regina’s stare at the moment. It also left the bruises from the other night far more visible.

“He’s sleeping.” Regina’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t an answer to her question. Emma sighed, reading the woman’s mind without conscious effort. “He’s upset. Angry. Frustrated. He’s been through a lot the last few days.” Emma’s eyes moved to her parents, unwilling to look at Regina and Robin just yet. “We all have.”

“How are you feeling?” Ruby asked as she gravitated towards the group standing awkwardly around each other. Ruby touches Emma’s shoulder gently, mindful of the injuries her friend had suffered. “You should get off that leg.”

Emma sighs, knowing that she should. The sprain had been bothering her all day. She’d just pushed on and ignored the pain. She didn’t have any other choice in the matter.

“You were attacked.” Robin pointed out from where he stood, watching as Regina unconsciously moved towards Emma the moment the blonde sat down.

“Yes. The day before.”

“By who?” Regina asked as she sat next to Emma on the couch and inspected the bruises along her neck with a creased frown.

“More like, by _what_.” Emma hedged.

“The flying monkey you mentioned?” Regina asked, eyes wide as she recalled that little fact from Emma’s long winded explanation.

“Yep.” Emma pronounced the “p” roughly as she leaned away from Regina’s inspecting touch, afraid she’d lean into it if she didn’t pull away.

“Flying monkey?” Robin asked as he moved to sit on the arm of the couch closest to Regina.

“Like from Oz. With the Wicked Witch and all.” Ruby answered, noticing the tension in Emma’s jaw as she stalled in answering the thief’s question. “Except they’re not monkeys all the time. So maybe they’re like shape-shifters.”

“Wicked Witch…” Regina whispered, the hairs along her body rising at the notion of such a woman being in Storybrooke. It would explain how her magic was being thwarted. It had been frightening to realize that the magic was far stronger than her own. She had only ever encountered magic like this in two others, both of whom were dead. The fear had been why she was working so hard and so closely with the Charmings and their merry band of do-gooders. That and because working with them was the quickest way to find success and victory and thus allow her to leave and find Henry, and Emma by proxy.

Snow took a seat on the arm chair beside the couch that was fully occupied, Charming standing at her side as he always would. “That could answer where the missing people are. They’ve been changed or taken by the….”

Everyone kind of just started talking at once.

“Wicked Witch.” Regina supplied. “You can say it David. Green skin, pointy hat, and broomstick to boot.”

“I’m sorry, who?” Robin asked; stuck trying to catch up as everyone talked around him.

“They could be shape-shifters but that doesn’t really explain why they’ve completely disappeared otherwise.” Emma supplied as she thought about the missing people cases David mentioned and how they’d been growing in number for the last two weeks. Whatever the Wicked Witch was planning, it was going to happen soon.

“No, I guess it doesn’t.”

“You kno…oh. Well I guess you wouldn’t know. She’s like the Evil Queen—” Ruby turned an apologetic look to Regina.

  
Regina waved off Ruby’s concern and addressed Robin gently, “She is like me dear, except her skin tone is that of a frog and she rides around on a broom with a pointy black hat and has a nasty allergy to water. She comes from another world. One that exists with magic, called Oz.”

“Oh.” It seemed to know that there was just another world, one of many that existed, baffled the man who’d lived in a magic enchanted world all his life.

If he could be baffled, Emma wondered why she hadn’t been given as much credit for taking all the news she’d taken in the last two years as well as she had.

Emma sighed at the petty thoughts. She needed to get over the agitation with Robin Hood. Regina deserved to be happy. And by the woman’s complete lack of response to the idea of them being together except to apologize for the pain those memories caused, Emma suspected she had little chance to capture the Evil Queen’s affections. Not when she’d already given them to someone else.

Emma shook away her feelings and focused on the task at hand. They’d all joined here because they needed to make a plan. They needed to talk about what their next move was going to be.

“We need to make a plan. Obviously whatever it was that the Witch was planning is getting closer.”

“What makes you think that?” Hook asked, his arms drawn over his chest as he leaned against the wall several feet away from the circle in the center of the room.

Emma stated simply. “David mentioned how the disappearances have increased the last two weeks.”

Regina couldn’t help but agree with Emma, “She’s gathering her forces.”

“Exactly.” Emma nodded sparing Regina a minute smile before she addressed everyone in the room. “So we need to know how to handle whatever that plan is.”

“Okay, but we’re just as clueless as to what her plan is as we were before.” Snow stated, wincing at the whine of her voice.

“That’s why I think it would be best if we focused on recreating the memory potion that Emma took.” Regina put the idea on the table and was surprised to see that no one immediately debunked it just for the hell of it.

“Can you do that?” Snow asked, leaning forward with interest.

“I believe with the remainder of the potion Emma took I can recreate it.”

“And once we take it we will know what it is that this Witch is up to.” Charming grinned, glad that they wouldn’t be so in the dark anymore.

“There isn’t that much of it left.” Emma grimaced internally. If she’d known she’d need to save more of it she wouldn’t have taken as much as she had.

“What is left should be enough for me to try, once.”

“Only once?”

Regina nodded at Ruby, “I’m afraid so.”

“What if you can’t do it?” Emma asked, cringing when Regina’s eyes flashed.

“Do you have such little faith in me, Ms. Swan?”

“That’s not what I meant. I just meant…”

“That I am not capable of—”

Emma spoke just that much louder than Regina, essentially cutting her off. “That if it’s only a one shot deal we should probably be careful about it. Or…use it to our advantage.”

“Set a trap.” Robin’s eyes lit with a passion that Emma could recognize.

“Yes.”

Regina had a hard time keeping the grin off of her face. It was a good plan. “We might have even had a sure way of setting it if you hadn’t destroyed that bug.” Emma complained halfheartedly.

“Excuse me for seeing a threat to our safety and destroying it.”

“Ladies, please. The Queen did as she should have.” Hook knew he would have done the same thing. As would anyone else in the room, save for Emma and Snow.

“We’ll need them to believe that we have an advantage.”

“Your memories. If they knew you were about to get them back, she’d need to stop that.” Emma recalled how Regina had been most desperate and made her most mistakes when she began to fear that Emma believed Henry’s ‘stories’ about everyone’s true identities. She hoped that in this case the same would apply.

“Why are you so certain she would do so?” Robin asked, seemingly genuinely curious.

Regina caressed Robin’s knee as she explained their reasoning. “She wouldn’t have taken away our memories if she could afford for us to have them again.”

“So, how do we do this with as little danger as possible?” Snow asked, making sure to meet the eyes of everyone in the room.

“We can use my house.” Regina offered quickly.

“No.” Emma shot it down just as quickly.

“It is the perfect location. It is well protected. Much more than any other building in town besides the convent.”

“It isn’t safe Regina. She was in there this morning. She toyed with us.” _With me,_ Emma thought darkly.

“I must agree with the Savoir. The house is not a safe enough option. I do not wish to lose you to this woman because we underestimated her.” Robin stared adoringly into Regina’s eyes, lifting his hand to touch the witch’s cheek.

“I can take care of myself.” Regina bristled; she had been taking care of herself for years. For anyone to assume that she couldn’t was ludicrous. “I can re-work the spells.”

“I don’t think he’s trying to say you aren’t capable, Regina.” Emma began, wondering why she was helping the man escape Regina’s ire. “But she’s obviously after you and the last thing we should do is let her get to you. For all we know you could be the key to whatever she’s got planned. We can’t risk that.”

Charming winced, recognizing his daughter’s worry for Regina’s safety for what it was. Not a way to stop the Wicked Witch from achieving her plan, but a way to keep Regina close and keep her safe.

“I’m afraid that I agree with, Emma.” David spoke up, though it made his stomach turn to do so. He didn’t want to think about what Emma’s feelings would translate to. He didn’t want to see her get hurt, anymore hurt than she already was. So if letting her work out her feelings towards Regina while the sorceress was nearby, then he’d help her get that.

Emma shared a momentary glance with David, where she bowed her head in thanks to her father.

“You should stay where it’s safe.” Emma insisted.

“Yes, you should.” Robin spoke up, cutting Emma off before she could offer the next step of this plan. Regina’s gaze was drawn away from Emma to the man sitting beside her. “You should stay with me and the merry men. We will all keep each other safe.”

Emma wanted to laugh, “Oh, right, because you’ll all be so safe out in the middle of the woods.”

“If the Queen wants to spend her time in the woods foraging, let her Swan. They can take care of each other. Just as Robin said.” Hook stated from his end of the room. Sick with jealousy over how keen Emma was to protect Regina.

“And play right into this woman’s plans?”

“I’m confused Ms. Swan. Am I playing into our enemies hands if I stay in my own home or if I am away from it?” Regina challenged, curious to see how Emma would react to being called out on her bluff. She knew better than to put much merit into Emma’s actions. She had learned her lesson to never trust the blonde with her heart.

This was not the time to begin to trust that Emma could be different. Emma was confused, she was being barraged on all sides by the spell that Regina had cast on her. The same spell that had so clearly altered the blonde’s sense of perception. After all Emma had never loved her before the spell. If Regina was clear of one thing, it was that Emma’s actions were being fueled by the spell. Nothing more and the pain of that tore at her battered heart.

The peaceful discussion slowly digressed into several arguments sprouting up between all the members around the room.

On the stairs in the shadows green eyes and eavesdropping ears listened and watched everything taking place in the Inn’s sitting room, unseen.

**End Chapter Ten**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 11**

“There you are. Slinking off are you?” Zelena asked the crystal ball as she caught sight of Walsh stalking the Inn where the witch knew the Savoir and her brat were safely tucked inside. She spoke into the ball and noticed how Walsh could hear her immediately. “It’s time to come home, Walsh. We haven’t the time for your vendettas.”

The man scowled at the air around him but turned away from the bushes and transformed into his monkey form and began to fly back home to her. With a smile she looked back at the crystal ball and watched as the image changed to see the room that young Henry was sleeping in. The poor lad was tossing and turning under his sheets. “You poor pretty thing you. Whatever is it plaguing your dreams?” She smirked and began to cackle.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Everything was in shadows. Henry was moving slowly through the miasma towards the sounds of distorted voices. He could hear the sound of the oceans waves but couldn’t see the water. The sun seemed to be shining at the fog was gray rather than black nothingness. The closer he came to the sounds of voices the thinner the fog became.

He saw a tall woman dressed in black speaking with someone. He couldn’t see who or their faces as he stood several feet behind them. A part of him wanted to run in the other direction but his feet brought him closer and closer. It was as the woman’s head began to turn and her profile became visible that an intolerable pain in his chest spread throughout his whole body and made him scream.

Suddenly he wasn’t behind the woman anymore. He was standing in front of her sitting on the rock under the dock like he had the other day. The pain in his heart was matched by the pain in his head that seemed to travel and meet at the center of his neck. His movements were sluggish as he struggled to hear the woman’s voice. He stood from the rock when he realized he didn’t know who it was that was coming under the deck, cornering him and blocking the only exit. He couldn’t really see the woman very well because of the shadows playing out from the deck. But she was tall and she was moving closer and something primal in him told him to run. He tried to take a step away but found his limbs wouldn’t move. He wanted to run as far and as fast as he could away from this woman bathed in shadow, because he knew something horrible was about to happen.

The woman tisked at him, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Apparently, he wasn’t going anywhere. He stared down at his body and noticed a strange glow around it, like a force field of some kind keeping him still. He shot his eyes back to the approaching woman, fear spiking through him sharply. “Who are you? What do you want?!” He struggled valiantly against the magic holding him captive. Trying not to panic.

The woman stepped closer, finally out of the shadows and he noticed she was wearing a green and black cape like outfit that he’d seen in movies for women in the 1940’s. She was wearing heels but for some odd reason they weren’t sinking into the sand like they should. It was almost like she was gliding just above the sand, but that was impossible. It was _also_ impossible for him to be stuck with nothing but a force field surrounding him. Her hair was curly and a nice shade of red, but it was her face that scared him. The way she was looking at him, the anger and threat in her eyes alone.

“Which would you like me to answer first? Who I am, or what I want?” She asked as she stalked towards Henry with a predatory smile. It was always lovely when a plan came together. To think these were the fools that had defeated Pan.

Henry opened his mouth as if to answer but she continued speaking without waiting for his response. “I am your aunt Zelena.” Henry’s eyes widened, he didn’t have an aunt Zelena. But honestly it wasn’t the fact that she was claiming to be his aunt that scared him. It was how the skin around her neck and face was slowly turning green. At first he thought it was just a trick of the light and the moss shining green streams down on the woman, but as it spread and the green darkened he realized it was just the woman’s skin. It was green. _It was turning green._

“What I want…” She hissed as she stepped up to him and used her elegantly long green fingers with sharp nails to tilt his chin up so he was looking into her eyes, not staring at her skin’s pallor, “Is your heart.”

Henry opened his mouth to scream, but it was too late.

While he had been so focused on her eyes and her green skin her other hand moved to his chest. It felt like his chest was about to explode as she reached her hand into his chest cavity and grabbed a hold of his heart. Her hand had literally just gone through his skin and he was still alive. The pain that was in his head was all encompassing now. Every inch of his body ached and trembled around her arm.

And yet, there was something nagging at him. Something about this sensation was familiar to him. He had felt this kind of pain before. This type of invasion into his body had happened before. He just couldn’t seem to focus on when.

There was a tug on his heart, the woman was trying to pull it out.

Zelena frowned as she focused on her task.

“It seems like your mother is very protective after all.” The demon woman growled as she focused more intently on his chest. He felt something warm begin to burn inside his chest. Her arm was turning red and he couldn’t help but scream. The sound of his scream didn’t even leave the small area, as Zelena erected a bubble around them. A trick she’d learned from Glinda many years before. It trapped Henry’s screams inside, unfortunately making her listen to them as she worked to counter act his mother’s protection spells.

It was with a single moment of clarity through the pain and burning sensation that he stared at the witch with clear, knowing eyes.

He remembered. Everything!

Emma’s 28th birthday. Finding her in her apartment.  
Teaching Emma about the curse and her family.  
The poisoned apple turnover.  
Emma breaking the curse.  
Meeting his dad in New York with Mr. Gold.  
His mom being framed for killing Archie.  
Tamara and Greg kidnapping him.  
Pan tricking him.  
Losing his heart.  
Switching bodies with Peter Pan and his mom saving him.  
The curse consuming everything behind them and his mom giving him and Emma new memories as they crossed over the town line and escaped.  
The tears in his moms eyes as she raised her hands and changed the curse.

How the door had slammed closed after her and Emma fought their voices echoing throughout the whole house before it went silent and the only thing he could hear was Emma’s pleas and the sound of the car driving away.

He remembered **_everything._** The life he was so sure of not a few moments ago was fake and he knew it.

Zelena disabled the magic that Regina had protecting Henry’s heart easily. Her sister was far too fond of blood magic and although Henry’s body convulsed with the pain of her exploration of his chest, she continued on. With a simple tug, she pulled her hand out of Henry’s chest.

“My moms are going to destroy you.” Henry predicted, promised. His last thought of his own as she whispered softly to his heart, her control over him cementing itself.

It didn’t matter anymore if he remembered or not, because now he was hers.

Zelena smiled as she looked into Henry’s glazed eyes. She had some work to do before he could go back to his parents and spy for her, but he would do just wonderfully.

“You and I, Henry, we are going to have so much fun together.” She smiled as she looked down at his golden heart and met his eyes

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Henry. Henry…Henry!” Emma shook Henry’s shoulders roughly as she tried to wake her son from the nightmare that had him screaming and thrashing in his sleep.

Henry’s eyes opened and for a moment he didn’t react. He simply remained staring up at the sight of Emma’s face directly above him. It was after a few moments of being awake that he finally blinked and shot up, his hands grabbing a hold of Emma’s and squeezing them tightly.

“Mom…” He whimpered.

Emma’s heart tore as she pulled Henry closer to her and held her against her chest. She soothed him by rubbing gentle circles around his back.

He whimpered softly against Emma’s chest. Unknowingly to the blonde bounty hunter his eyes flashed green for just a moment and his lips curled up into a snarl before his whimpers and tears continued.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“You look horrible.” Ruby mentioned as she set a cup of coffee down in front of Emma.

Emma rubbed wearily at her eyes. “Henry was up all night with nightmares.”

“I heard him.” Emma went to offer an apology but Ruby waved it off, “Everything alright now?” Ruby asked as she took a seat down next to Emma on the couch.

“He’s in the room with a cold towel on his head. He’s got horrible headaches.” Emma tugged at her own hair. “I’m worried that the spells messing with him like it did with me.”

“Is nightmares how it started for you?”

“No. It started with migraines that got so bad I’d get sick.” Which, they both realized, was what had happened to Henry yesterday. “Then I’d lost time, blacking it out, and the nightmares kept me from sleeping. It’s different when I’m the one that can’t sleep. I’m used to it. But I’ve never heard Henry cry like that. Even when we thought Regina wasn’t coming back.”

Ruby squeezed Emma’s knee as they fell into silence and both drank their coffee.

When Snow and Charming arrived they noticed how worn down Emma was immediately. They tried to convince her to wait to set the trap with Regina. Emma knew that she couldn’t handle watching Henry progress down the same road of insanity that she had. They needed to do this, and they needed to do it today. There was no time left.

Even Regina’s arrival didn’t brighten Emma’s demeanor. Regina noticed the tension in the Inn immediately. She frowned as she saw how Snow was dotting over Emma.

“Whats happened?”

“The spell is affecting Henry in the same way it did Emma.” Ruby answered noting how Charming seemed unable to open his mouth to answer the question his jaw was so tight.

“He’s having nightmares and migraines. He lost part of the day yesterday. He didn’t get more than a few hours of sleep.” Emma didn’t even look up to meet Regina’s eyes.

Charming snarled at Regina, making the witch flinch. “You think I did this on purpose? That I would hurt Henry? Regina accused Charming of exactly what he was thinking.

“No one’s accusing anyone. We’re just concerned for Henry.” Snow found herself trying to placate Charming and Regina before they had an opportunity to take things farther.

“I…” Charming wanted to reply for himself but stopped when Snow sent him a dangerous glare.

“Please….” Emma whispered, “Please, can we just focus on how to help Henry? No one is at fault. Regina didn’t do this. So instead of infighting again we need to work on how to help him. He’s in pain.” Emma’s voice cracked at the mention of the pain that Henry was suffering.

“You don’t look well enough for this plan of yours.” Regina decided it was better to comment on how horrible Emma looked instead of how much pain Henry had to be in for it to be affecting Emma this profoundly.

“I’ll be fine once we get our hands on this witch.” Emma stood up from the couch with purpose. They had things they needed to get done.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Regina kept periodically looking at Emma. The blonde was resting her head heavily on the edge of the table, her eyes watching each of Regina’s movements as she measured out certain ingredients to try and make the memory potion. There was a tiredness around Emma that Regina had never seen, not even in Neverland.

“How long has it been since you’ve had a good night’s sleep?” Regina found herself asking unable to stop herself from conversing with Emma. Seeing the blonde so defeated and withdrawn tugged at her heart in ways she’d only ever felt when Henry was hurting.

“Fourteen…no fifteen months.” Emma amended, remembering how she hadn’t been able to sleep much in Neverland, not when she could hear the cries of the other lost boys.

Regina nearly dropped the vial she was holding. “Fifteen months…”

“The last year I’ve been having the same symptoms as Henry. Mine just progressed slower than his. He was fine until we came back to Storybrooke.”

“I never intended for you to be plagued with troubles Emma.”

Emma sat back in her chair, slowly nodding at the sincerity in Regina’s words. “I know. I believe you. It wasn’t…” Emma chuckled to herself, “…it wasn’t so bad having those memories. They were better than the real ones, for the most part.”

Regina tilted her head as she considered Emma critically. “You truly believe those memories are preferable?”

Emma couldn’t help but smile, “We were happy.” Emma sighed wistfully. She leaned back more and stared up at the ceiling. “We were in love.” She groaned as she slouched forward. “Everything’s so confusing.”

Regina’s focus was on the vial she hoped contained the memory spell even as she fought the urge to give Emma her full attention.

“The spell would only have affected your memories, Ms. Swan. Not your emotions. Those, were yours to begin with.” Emma froze. Her eyes widening as she looked at Regina, her body on immediate alert. The voice did not belong to Regina. It was however one that Emma was very familiar with.

Emma shot up from her seat, her eyes locking in on the shrouded figure by the door. “Walsh.” She growled reaching for her gun on her hip. Just as her fingers slid over the metal of the gun her body froze.

She looked down and saw that her body was constricted by green magic. Emma’s eyes met Regina’s. Regina’s focus was on Walsh as well and she was using her own magic to hold the good doctor against the wall. Emma knew that Walsh didn’t have magic. He wasn’t a sorcerer.

“He’s the decoy!” Emma tried to warn Regina. Just as she met the Queen’s hazel eyes Emma was forced to watch as Regina recognized her warning and the tell tail signs of magic along her skin. Regina flew through the air right into the wall on the far side of the room. The plaster of the wall cracking with the force of the impact.

“Regina!” Emma yelled trying to force her arms to move even with the magic confines squeezing around her tighter and tighter. Emma watched as Regina tried to lift herself off the floor but her body was picked up and thrown across the room into the glass statue of a unicorn, the glass shattering atop the newly unconscious woman.

Walsh wasn’t the one playing with Regina like a ragdoll, that only left one other.

“Poor little Savoir. Always falling in love with people who will never pick you.” Emma growled as she heard the voice of the witch from behind her. “Poor dear. Afraid to get left behind yet again. For someone to know you, all of you, and choose to leave you.” Emma felt her face enflame with shame and anger as she heard her own fears being thrown back in her face. “You’ll never be good enough. Not for your parents. No, they’re going to have another baby now. Someone to replace you. To give that child the life that you never had.”

“Damn you…” Emma cursed as she stared daggers into Walsh, who remained by the door with his arms crossed over his chest, his own scowl in place.

Emma felt the presence of the witch behind her and tensed. She tried, feebly to move. The only part of her body she had control over was her head.

“Release me and fight fair.”

“Fair? Oh Savior. Don’t you know?” Zelena walked out from behind Emma so that the blonde could get a good look at the woman for the first time. Her skin wasn’t green. It was as pale as Emma’s own. The only emerald color on her was her striking emerald eyes. “The wicked never play fair.” Zelena caressed Emma’s cheek, truly looking at the Sherriff. There was something she saw in Emma’s eyes that she had not expected to find.

“You’re not like the others. You will never be like them. And one day they will turn on you. No matter how much they profess to love you. They will turn on you because they will come to fear you. And fear truly is the most powerful of emotions. It will even cut down the strength of love when used correctly.” Zelena squeezed Emma’s chin to the point of pain before she released her.

“Get my sister.” Zelena commanded, never allowing her eyes to move from Emma.

Walsh took the command with a grain of salt and moved towards the fallen Queen. Emma’s eyes narrowed, her heart racing inside her chest the closer that Walsh got to Regina’s unconscious form. Emma was only momentarily shocked by the witch’s comment. As far as she knew Regina had no siblings and yet here was the Wicked Witch claiming to be a long lost sister to the Evil Queen. God…Emma felt like groaning. Only shit like this could happen in Storybrooke. An enchanted soap opera at its worst.

“Don’t worry though. Soon enough you’ll never have to worry about being born at all.” Zelena smirked, her fingers twirling around Emma’s hair for a moment. “What a shame. You would have made such a lovely hand maiden.”

As Emma struggled against the binds holding her Zelena went to the table Regina had been working at for hours and destroyed the progress they had been making and yet Emma could care less. Her focus remained on Walsh and his movements towards Regina.

“Leave her alone!” Emma’s panic set in as she fought furiously against the magic holding her like a cobra. “No, get away from her you animal!”

Walsh stopped his movements just as he reached Regina and looked over his shoulder at Emma. His smirk was malicious and the teeth that of the animal Emma was afraid he would become again. “You’re just as useless as you always have been. No wonder why your family was happy to get rid of you. Soon even Regina will leave you and taken Henry. You’re not worth their time.”

The combined panic and anger fueled Emma’s rage. Around her the magic that was holding her began to fizzle out. The touch of it was like hot needles prickling into her skin. She grimaced as the heat began to grow and the magic holding her burst, knocking the Wicked Witch and Walsh off their feet.

“I said get away from her!” She screamed, her hands glowing white as around her the light bulbs began to pop with the electricity in the air surrounding Emma.

Zelena rushed to her feet, surprised at Emma’s show of magic. No one should have been able to get out from her hold. No one.

“How…” Zelena gasped, truly having underestimated the Savior’s capabilities.

Emma glared as she threw her hands out at Zelena and the magic crackling around her hands flew towards the older witch. Zelena deflected each of the electric bolts Emma threw at her as best she could. It was clear that Zelena was struggling as Emma continued to toss the magic at the witch without care of tiring. Zelena was forced to step away with each deflection. Emma hadn’t the faintest clue how she was using her magic in a way she’d never done thus far. All she knew was that she needed to listen to her instincts against this witch.

Regina had taught her that controlling and channeling her magic was all about emotions and right now she was bursting with enough emotions to take on three Wicked Witch’s. And maybe her mind was a little clouded by the adrenaline.

Emma’s eyes glowed a bright white as she snarled at Zelena, “Fear **_IS_** the strongest motivator.” She repeated to the cocky witch as she watched her recoil as Emma’s bolts pierced through her shield and hit her shoulder. Zelena fell to the floor with a cry of pain as the white magic pierced her skin.

Emma was about to take a step towards the fallen Wicked Witch when she heard Walsh’s heavy footfalls coming towards her. He was trying to rush her from the side. She clenched her fists and turned her body when he was right on her. The fist she’d been clenching burst open so her fingers were splayed widely apart. A small implosion of magic erupted from her hand and pushed directly into Walsh’s chest.

Walsh’s limbs wind milled as he was sent flying right through the window of Regina’s office.

Zelena watched from where she lay sprawled upon the floor at Emma’s show of power. With a scream she slammed her hand down into the floor before she disappeared in a cloud of green smoke.

Emma’s body relaxed as soon as Zelena disappeared. Her breath came in pants as the magic that had been circulating around her like a wind tunnel disappeared.

Without wasting another second Emma raced to Regina’s side, doing her best not to focus on the words their enemies had fed her.

 _“The spell would only have affected your memories, Ms. Swan. Not your emotions. Those, were yours to begin with.”_ Could she have been in love with Regina before she’d left Storybrooke? Is that why the spell had been corrupted? Because her own desires had changed Regina’s intended spell?

Cleaning the glass off of Regina’s back so she could pick the woman up, Emma knew that she could have been in love with Regina. Even then she would have died to protect the bitchy woman. She carried Regina over to the couch in the middle of the office and placed her down gently.

Maybe the woes that she had suffered the last year were her own doing. And maybe, just maybe those fake memories were a gift to herself. She wasn’t afraid of being in love with Regina anymore. What she was most afraid of now was living without her.

“Emma…” Regina whispered as she started to come to.

“Hey, there. Sleepy head.” Emma responded just as softly.

“What…what happened?” Regina asked as she tried to look around her office but cringed at making any sudden movements.

“You got your ass handed to you by the Wicked Witch. Took a pretty hard hit to the head.” Emma was a bit concerned about that hit. She knew how tough it was to come back from a beating like Regina just suffered.

“Must you be so crass?” Regina’s insufferable nature appeared and still, Emma could only smile softly at the woman.

“Only as much as you need to be the one in control. So, you know, yes. I do.”

Regina squinted in confusion as she met Emma’s eyes. “Are you sure you weren’t the one to hit your head?” Emma appeared to be fine, though a bit…happy.

Emma rolled her eyes, “Yes, I’m sure. Now come on. Let’s go check those security cameras so we can ID this bitch.”

“You just want to see me get thrown across the room again.” Regina complained as she took Emma’s offered hand, wincing internally as she moved.

“No.” Emma’s mood suddenly shifted. “No. I don’t want to see that happen again. But it worked. She came after us.”

“What did you learn?” Regina asked as she moved with Emma to the security room down the hall from her office. She’d had cameras installed after the last time something had been stolen from it. She hadn’t told anyone about the installations.

“Well, she’s your sister.”

Regina’s steps faltered. “She’s **_what_**?” Her voice grew low and dangerous.

“Your sister.” Emma flinched at the outrage upon Regina’s face.

“She lied. She isn’t my sister. I don’t, I don’t have a sister.” Regina’s brow creased as she tried for what felt like the millionth time to remember the missing year. It only got her frustrated as she could remember nothing more than watching Emma and Henry driving away. Her heart lurched in her chest as it did that day when she recalled Emma looking back at the town line just before the curse reached her.

“What else did she say?” Regina knew that trying to disprove the woman would be useless. This wasn’t about her. This was about saving everyone from whatever the witch had planned. It didn’t help that knowing the wicked witch thought they were sisters helped her understand how the woman had broken through her blood magic spells.

“She’s obviously after you. She wanted to take you with her.” Regina nodded, unsure what having her would accomplish. “She mentioned something weird about how I’m not going to be born.” Emma mentioned as they went into the empty office. Regina went to the computer and put in a few passwords. The screen powered up and began to replay the last twenty minutes.

Regina winced as she heard the taunting Emma had to suffer by both the wicked doctor and his mistress. The point the witch made about Emma not being born worried her. But it was how easily and how naturally Emma controlled her magic when defending her from a threat that caught Regina’s immediate attention. Emma’s magic had surged in a way that Regina had never seen. The display of power was truly incredible. She was in awe of the blonde. To have so much power and to use it as effortlessly as she did with no training was something Regina thought impossible. It would appear that Ms. Swan was capable of even the most impossible feats.

“What does she mean when she says I’ll never be born?”

“I don’t know. But I’d hate to find out.” Regina made a copy of the footage. “There are spells, impossible spells, for traveling back in time to change things. It has never been accomplished before.”

“But she seems pretty certain of herself.”

“Yes, that I can see. Which means we had to stop her before she can make her attempt. If she is able to complete her spell…” Regina left the statement conclude, the obvious fear of that possibility clear within her eyes. “…then you will never have been born and neither will Henry.”

Emma felt her heart clench inside her chest. Regina’s worry was not over her. It was over Henry. Sighing softly, Emma followed after Regina. They needed to inform the others of what they’d learned.

Now that they knew who the witch was and what she was planning to do they would have a better idea on how to stop her. Emma just hoped that after they stopped her that she’d have time to breathe before another crisis arrived on their doorstep.

**End Chapter Eleven**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 12**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Zelena screamed as she swiped the glass off of her table. The sound of them crashing against the floor and shattering appeased her for only a moment. “You lied to me!” Zelena howled as she stared across the room at Walsh. “You told me that she had no idea how to control her magic!”

“The people in town believe that she doesn’t.”

“But you’ve seen her use it! In New York!” Which was astounding to the wicked witch. If Emma was capable of using magic in a world where magic did not exist she was truly the most powerful white witch in this generation and dozens of the ones to have passed.

Walsh snarled, “Stay out of my mind!”

“Do you realize what this means?”

“Yes.” Walsh smiled. “She has the ability to stop you.” Walsh hissed. “And finally free me from you.”

Zelena screamed as she slammed her hands down on the table in front of her. The wind in the room picked up and sent Walsh back twelve feet till his back collided with the wall. “We shall see how long I will still need you.” Because now. Now she had Henry. And with the time approaching. She hadn’t the time to worry about being betrayed. She needed Emma Swan out of the picture for the next 48 hours. And the best way to do that was to use the boy whose heart she held in a chest just behind her. It was time to put him to good use.

Zelena went and took the heart out of the chest, smiling at the glowing gold heart as it rested in her hand. “Henry, my pet. It is time for you to come to me, we have work to do.”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“This is who we’re dealing with.” Regina said as she turned the laptop around to show the group surrounding her the video recording.

“That’s…” Mary Margaret gasped, “That’s Zelena. The midwife. She…she’s supposed to stop by the apartment this afternoon.”

“What?!” Emma and Charming both exclaimed at the same time.

“She came up to me in the diner the other day. She seemed…nice enough. She wished to know when I was due. We spoke for a little while before being interrupted.”

“She’s supposed to come to the apartment…today?” Charming wished he was wearing his sword. His hand flexed with the need to grasp the pommel of it.

“There has to be a reason for that. She couldn’t have wanted to meet with you so soon to your due date without reason.” Regina just couldn’t figure out what that reason would be. Why would Zelena need Snow and the baby? What did she have to gain from the unborn infant?

“We can use that. She doesn’t know of the recording. That we’ve now all seen her face. We can set a trap for her in the apartment.” Robin was still hoping that they could set a trap to catch the woman who’d so callously attacked his Regina.

“We are not using my wife and child as bait!” Charming hissed.

Snow protectively put both hands on her stomach. She and Charming refused to ever put another of their children in the type of danger they had put Emma.

“Why not mate, you’ve used one child for the greater good. Why not do so again?”

“Now _really_ isn’t the time to be bringing me into the fight.” Emma complained as she looked at her father and Hook. She sighed heavily, she hated to agree with Hook, but she had no choice. “Hook’s right, David.”

“Emma how could you think that! We did what we thought was right.”

Emma turned to her mother, her shoulders already dropped in defeat. There was never going to be a winner when it came to this subject. They had all suffered because of the decisions that were made.

“You sent me to another world when I was only an hour old hoping for the best!” Emma didn’t want to argue about this again. But this particular wound would never heal. And it was just festering the longer she thought about how her parents were replacing her with a re-do baby. It was exactly where she couldn’t afford to be hit, and it had already been mentioned by the wicked witch and Walsh today and she’d remained quiet then. But she was not about to sit here and let her parents excuse themselves of the fault in their actions. Just as she hadn’t let Regina get away with the fault in hers. She was just feeling a little raw when it came to her abandonment issues today.

“You sent me away because someone told you to. And now you’ll have learned your lesson and refuse to put yourself in a controlled trap when it’s not just your child on the line but mine as well?” Emma was outraged at that. Until they broke this curse Henry was going to suffer and Emma couldn’t stand for that. Her mother was just going to have to buck up.

“There is no control when it comes to this woman. You have to know that Emma. Look at what she’s capable of!” David motioned all around them. “She’s more powerful than Regina!”

“And I’m more powerful than her!” Emma exclaimed, shocking her parents. “She’s afraid of my power. Terrified of it. And frankly, so am I.”

“But Emma, you don’t even know how to control your powers…”

“It seems…Ms. Swan is capable of a great many things when she feels threatened.” Regina’s voice surprised all three Charmings.

“Or when scared.” Emma whispered softly into the open room, and the only one to hear her was Ruby she said it so quietly.

Regina pressed play on the laptop and allowed everyone in the room to witness just how powerful Emma’s magic was. They saw how the screen became distorted as Emma’s magic sparked around her, but could still make out how well she had handled both the Wicked Witch and her lackey.

“She is capable of protecting her unborn sibling. Of that I am most certain. What I am uncertain of, is whether either of you have the courage to trust her with it.” Regina understood that she was putting Snow and Charming in a difficult position. If they refused the idea now it would not only be refusing a good idea, but it would be a statement of fact against their daughter. It would show everyone present in this room, just how little faith they had in anyone but themselves when it came to the protection of their unborn child. And honestly, Regina thought they weren’t capable of it themselves in any realm.

Snow held Regina’s eyes, recognizing the challenge in her former step-mother’s gaze. Regina played dirty, but then again. They all did every once and a while. Regina was just the best when it came to subterfuge.

“I want a detailed plan. I want to know that no matter which way she comes into my home she can’t leave on her own. Possibly with me as a captive.” Snow finally said aloud, making the decision for her and for Charming.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Tell me again why you want to leave your heart with that woodsman?” Emma asked as she waited for the cost to be cleared. She and Regina had stayed at the Inn after everyone else had left. Snow and David to make it to the meeting with Zelena and Hook and Robin to get to their posts.

  
“It’s better than allowing Zelena to have it.”

“Why do you think she’s after your heart?” Emma asked quietly, afraid that they might wake Henry. Ruby had said he’d finally fallen asleep after complaining of pain for most of the day. They were both unwilling to leave Henry’s side for longer than they had to, especially knowing that he wasn’t well.

“The only spells that I’ve seen to travel into the past have all included the sacrifice of someone’s heart. Most dark spells, powerful spells, require a sacrificial life. And in our world the greatest symbol of that was a person’s heart, still beating from their chest.”

“And because she seems focused on getting to you, you think it’s because she needs your heart.”

“The heart of a family member, someone who shares your blood would only make the spell that much stronger. Just as blood magic is one of the strongest magics a caster can use. My thought is, in using my heart; it will amplify the spell enough for it to work.”

“So you believe that she’s your sister now?”

Regina frowned for a moment, “I have no evidence to say she isn’t. But a growing pile to believe that she is.”

“When does she need to do the spell?” Emma asked, realizing that if Zelena was trying to use all elements to her advantage then maybe there was some cosmic reason why her time table had accelerated.

Regina was impressed that Emma would think of something only she had previously thought of. “There is an alignment with Pluto, mercury, and the moon.”

“And the significance to that?” Emma asked, clueless as to what it would mean for all three to be aligned.

“I’m not sure myself. But it would explain why she has been so aggressive the last two days. Her time table has been changed.”

Emma nodded, becoming quiet as she contemplated everything and nothing at the same time. “Do you think this is going to work?”

“Are you asking if I think the plan will work, or if you are capable of protecting your mother?” Regina read between the lines that Emma stood worrying unneededly between.

“Both.” Emma’s gaze fell down to the floor.

“I think that you are capable of the incapable Ms. Swan.” Emma looked up, noticing how close she was to Regina in this moment. When all she wanted to do was lean forward and kiss the woman who knew just what to say to make her feel more like herself. “And every time I’ve ever doubted you, you’ve surpassed expectations.”

“From anyone else I’d take that as a compliment. From you, it could mean anything.” Emma fidgeted. They were standing in the hallway just outside Henry’s bedroom, waiting for the text to come from David. Once they got the text Regina would transport them into the apartment while Hook stood in wait in the stairwell of the apartment building and Robin sat across from it on the adjacent roof if she chose to leave through the window and fire escape.

Regina’s eyes softened as she saw just how nervous and anxious Emma was. Gently she took ahold of Emma’s hand and squeezed it. “You will be fine, Ms. Swan.” Regina saw Emma’s eyes dip away from her eyes and remain riveted on her eyes. “I have faith in you.”

Emma thought it was stupid, especially since in the next few minutes she was going to be pulled into a fight with a powerful sorceress, but she was charmed to know that aside from everything going on. Regina had faith in her. And for now, that was more than enough.

“Regina I…” Emma swallowed thickly as she tugged on the hand that held her own, pulling the slender woman forward. Her heart raced against her chest as she focused on Regina’s lips and how they parted in surprise as Regina realized just what Emma planned.

Emma held her breath when she realized Regina wasn’t going to stop her. A part of her mind wondered why. Why Regina had never seemed as appalled by the idea of them as lovers from the beginning. Why Regina had been kind rather than defensive and attentive rather than evasive. Perhaps Emma was just seeing things she wanted to. Maybe she was making up lies to appease her own heart. But for a moment she knew that Regina was going to let her kiss her. And in that moment she knew that she wasn’t the only one who’d felt something before the second curse had been cast.

“Emma…” Regina’s voice was nothing more than a breathy gasp as she could practically feel the touch of Emma’s lips against her own. The longing within the very pit of her stomach grew. She had wanted to taste Emma’s lips since the ridiculous woman had pushed her aside and been sucked into the portal to the Enchanted Forest two years ago. She had longed for Emma’s return after. The woman had helped her create magic.

With just a touch they had created such powerful magic together. Their bond was one of pure magic. They were capable of fantastical things when they worked together and when they used magic together, it was like nothing Regina had ever felt before. She could feel Emma’s emotions. She could see into the woman in ways no one else would ever see her. Just like she was sure Emma knew more about her than anyone ever would.

Regina may not have been able to admit to anyone but herself the truth. But she was always honest with herself. Sometimes to a fault. And she knew from the moment that Emma saved her from the fire Rumple set, to the time Emma had defended her against her parents in Neverland, a part of her heart would always lie with Emma. Just like a part of it would always lie with Daniel.

Regina had accepted her fate to be alone, to be without the love of someone whom she could be herself with. Even now she feared that she would lose Robin if she were to reveal all of her darkness to him. That fear did not exist when she looked at Emma. She knew no matter how different they were, they were also the same.

Whatever it was Regina was going to say was lost to them forever. The sound of her phone stopped them both cold.

It was David.

It was time.

“We will finish this, later.” Regina was firm in her statement. “Close your eyes.” She only waited to see that Emma had followed her instructions before she transported them out of the hallway and into Snow’s apartment, inside the bathroom. As was part of the plan, Emma would be in this room closest to the action and Regina would be waiting upstairs in the master bedroom for her cue.

With a final glance Regina disappeared from sight, leaving Emma flushed and far more anxious than she had been before. She was only a little disoriented from the transportation. Regina promised that the more she did them, the less affected she would become by them, until they were as natural to Emma as they were to Regina. Emma just wished that time would be here already. Her stomach was already in knots and the transportations nausea did not help.

Just beyond the door Emma could hear her mother and Charming conversing with Zelena. She had to give it to her parents. They didn’t sound any different than normal. Which was good, any differences in attitude and Zelena would know that they were on to her.

Emma felt like she was waiting an hour before her mother finally gave the signal. “Would you be so kind as to make some tea, David?”

“Of course. Would you like any, Zelena?” David asked as he stood up slowly putting himself in-between Zelena and Snow as if he were about to walk around her and into the kitchen.

“I would love some. Would you like me to make it, I have a special blend that is just to _die_ for.”

Charming’s eyebrow ticked at the turn of phrase, once again wishing he had his sword. He noticed Regina on the balcony on the second floor by the stairs. She was focused and muttering something he couldn’t hear. He wished she’d finish already so he could get Snow as far away from this woman as possible.

“I’m sure it is splendid, sis, but he’s not interested.” Regina stated from the second floor, catching Zelena by surprise. Before the redheaded witch could escape Regina finished casting her spell and the wicked Witch froze in place.

Emma came out of the bathroom and saw the struggle Regina was having keeping Zelena contained. Regina was already sweating and her arms were trembling with the effort to hold Zelena.

David was a few feet away from the door with Snow when it burst open and Hook came in with Leroy and Ruby behind him. Ruby tossed Charming his sword the moment she had the time. Leroy was just about to reach for Snow’s hand to lead her to safety, as it was his job to protect his Princess, when Regina lost her hold of Zelena.

Zelena waved her hand angrily through the air sending Leroy back out the door. Hook was pushed against the wall and Ruby was flipped right off of her feet into door they’d all just burst through.

Emma saw Regina panting as she shot a fireball at Zelena to distract the witch. Emma tried to make her magic work. Tried to send the bolts of electricity she had so easily formed the last time at the wicked witch. But nothing happened.

“David get her out of here!” Emma screamed as she grabbed a hold of the lamp sitting on the table closest to her and went to hit Zelena with it like a bat.

Zelena saw her coming easily and sent her skidding across the floor and into the kitchen island.

Without the added backup Charming couldn’t risk staying to fight the witch. He needed to keep Snow safe. “Run!” David urged Snow.

“Now where do you think you’re going?” Zelena pulled Charming and Snow further into the room, and closed the door. Blocking Leroy and the other dwarves from rushing into the apartment to help.

Emma groaned as she forced herself to stand up. Charming and Snow were in the opposite corner of the apartment, just beneath the stairs that Regina was on, tossing fireball after fireball at Zelena, in the same manner Emma had done with her white lightning, except Zelena was laughing as she easily batted away Regina’s flames.

“Anytime, Ms. Swan!” Regina encouraged Emma, realizing that she was only stalling the witch. She was trying to work her way in front of Charming and Snow to keep them somewhat protected against the more powerful caster.

Emma felt her heart racing against her chest as adrenaline pumped through her veins. She stood up and worked her way to the other side of the apartment. Trying desperately to make her magic work. To channel it the way that she had back in Regina’s office. Sparks began to fritz around her hands but it wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough.

Emma watched as Hook tried to charge forward against Zelena from her left flank while Regina continued her assault. The redheaded witch didn’t even flinch as she flicked Hook back against the wall like he was nothing more than a bug and still she continued to deflect Regina’s attacks.

“Get her out of here, Charming!” Regina insisted, knowing that no matter what, Zelena could not get her hands on Snow and the baby.

It was then that Emma saw Zelena become bored. She started on the offense, forcing Regina to step back with each of her attacks until Regina was cornered in the same area as David and Mary Margaret.

It was when Emma saw the fear and panic in Mary Margaret’s eyes as she clutched at her stomach that something inside of her flipped to ‘on’. The small sparks of electricity suddenly grew and once again circled around her like her own personal whirlwind shield of white magic.

She threw her arms out, sending the magic towards Zelena. The first hit catching the woman right in the center of the back. She screamed in pain as it burned right through her clothes.

“Leave them alone.” Emma ordered as she started on her own offensive, happy to see that this time she was able to drive Zelena away from her family, trapping her between herself and Regina.

Emma’s back was to the wall of windows now as she took up the place in front of her parents as Regina had circled around the apartment with Zelena to keep it so the wicked witch was always between them. As was the plan from the beginning. With the both of them attacking her at the same time more of their attacks would hit.

It was just as Emma knocked Zelena to the ground, the wicked witch panting as she knelt on the floor, that the windows behind Emma blew inward. Charming wrapped Snow in his arms and spun them around so the glass hit him. Emma turned just in time to see a flying monkey come flying right at her. The sound of her name being screamed was the last thing she heard before everything went dark.

**End Chapter 12**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 13**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“We have to find them, David! We have to!” Snow was becoming hysterical.

No one had expected for the witch’s army of flying monkeys to come bursting in through the apartment windows. There had been at least seven of them. David had been forced into a corner away from Emma in his efforts to keep the animals away from Snow, who was defenseless without her bow.

Hook and Ruby had been busy trying to keep several of the powerful beasts away from themselves, leaving Zelena enough time to attack and defeat Regina who had valiantly tried to get to the other side of the apartment to defend a fallen Emma.

Zelena, as Regina expected, was indeed after her heart. Zelena had tried to steal her heart, only to be disappointed to find Regina without it.

“I will get your heart, sister. And I have a good idea on where to start looking.” Zelena promised, the threat in her voice leaving Regina cold with worry.

When Zelena left the monkeys retreated to the windows breaking through them to fly away, but not before two of them had picked up Emma’s unconscious body and carried her out the window with them. Before anyone could do anything they were gone, and they had Emma. They’d escaped the apartment, knowing it was no longer safe to regroup. They’d gone to get Henry from the Inn to bring him to the convent which seemed to be the only safe place in town, only to find that he wasn't in his room, or anywhere to be found and Granny had been knocked out cold.

Which led them to where they were now: Snow was hysterical in her need to find Emma and Henry. Regina was doing her best not to simply break down. She couldn’t afford to be panicking as fiercely as Snow was, although everything in her wanted to be able to release her unparalleled fear for both Henry and Emma.

Robin and David were trying their best to console the two women, but were coming up short. Very short when it came to Robin’s ability to soothe Regina. All he could do was apologize. He had lost the heart that Regina had entrusted in him. He had been overrun by the same monkeys that kidnapped Emma and Henry right from under their noses.

“We will get them back, Snow. I promise.” David swore. Knowing he would do whatever was necessary to get his daughter and grandson back.

“Don’t be so quick to make promises you can’t keep Charming.” Regina hissed at the man as she pushed passed him. She was done waiting around doing nothing to find them. There were books in her house that she could use to cast a spell to do a locator spell. She just needed them and the ingredients.

Hook was quick to follow after Regina, knowing that if there was someone who would succeed in saving Emma and Henry, it was her.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Emma didn’t know where she was. She heard the agitated noises of monkeys all around her. So she figured she wasn’t exactly someplace safe. Especially when the last thing she remembered was being attacked by a flying monkey and cold clocked with a foot and meeting the cold hardwood floor of her mother’s apartment. Then there was the sound of Regina screaming her name before everything went black.

And now everything was still black, she couldn’t move, and she was probably in the monkeys lair or den or whatever it would be called.

“Personally I don’t know what she wants with you. You’re nothing more than a glorified nothing. A useless pathetic excuse for a savoir. Sure you have magic. But you don’t know how to use it when it matters. Just like you don’t know how to stick around when things get tough. I know you get that from your parents’ abandonment and the abuse you suffered at the hands of authority figures. And of course the fact that your boyfriend would have rather you save the world of fairytale characters and go to jail than save you from your fate.” Emma pretended she was still unconscious. Hoping that if she was, then he’d shut up. Now, more than ever, Emma wished she had followed her instincts and refused to see this stupid fake psychologist.

“To be honest. I don’t really care. I just find it entertaining. The woman certainly knows how to put on a good show. As a former carny at least that I can appreciate, even if she’s mad as a hatter.” Walsh sighed heavily as he sat down beside Emma’s prone body. “I do wish she’d have left your son out of all of this though. I am kind of fond of the boy. It’s not his fault he’s the truest believer.” Emma felt her heart clench. Henry. The witch was after Henry! “Ah well, at least she hasn’t crushed his heart yet.”

It was like being punched in the gut. Zelena had Henry’s heart. That should be impossible. Regina had protected his heart with…blood magic. Regina had thought she was the only living heir of her family, she’d thought it was a sure fire way of protecting their son’s heart. She had been wrong.

“I wish you luck, Emma. You’re going to need it.” Walsh offered the sentiment before he blew something against Emma’s face. It tingled and she tried not to breathe it in but it was impossible. She sucked in a deep breath and suddenly everything changed.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Why exactly are you following me?” Regina asked for what felt like the tenth time since leaving the convent.

“To make sure you get the ingredients you need to cast your spell.”

“What makes you think.”

“Let’s cut the crap, hmm? We both know that you are far more capable of saving Emma and Henry than those fairies. So let us pretend for a second that we can tolerate each other. I just want Emma and the boy to be safe. That means you have me as a partner whether you like it or not.”

Regina sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to scare him off. “Fine. But you stay five feet away from me at all times.” She still did not trust the man who had so easily handed her off to Greg. She’d suffered the types of pain she’d thought she’d escaped after pushing her mother through the mirror at Greg’s hands. She was not so easily appeased by his redemption.

“Deal.” He promised as he waited two moments longer before following after Regina. Both vigilantly looking up at the night sky around them for any flying enemies as they made their way to Henry Mills senior’s crypt. There were a few things there that she would need.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Regina had come up empty handed on the location spell. What she had found in its place within her mother’s things back in her crypt had kept her busy for the last hour in the kitchen. She was brewing what she knew would be a successful memory potion. She only had enough for five doses. She planned to give one to herself, Charming, Snow, and Henry. The last potion she was uncertain who she wished to give it to. Ruby had showed great loyalty in the last few weeks. But then there was Robin to consider and yet she hadn’t truly thought of him since leaving the convent. She’d hardly spared him a glance after he’d said he’d lost her heart to the flying monkeys and thus Zelena.

Her concern could not be spared for Robin and his feelings. She needed to find Henry and Emma. She needed to ensure that her family was safe. Anything and everything else was unimportant.

Regina suspected that Snow and Charming would insist that Blue Fairy be given a dose of the potion so that she might help. But Regina knew that matron fairy wouldn’t lift a finger to help them against Zelena. So she would make sure Hook knew, not to give Blue Fairy one of the four vials she was going to entrust to him to bring back to their allies.

“Are they almost finished?” Hook asked impatiently. The sooner the potions were finished the sooner her could leave and give them to Snow and Charming and come back so they could find Emma and Henry.

“Yes, now please. Shut up.” Regina was already as tight as a bow string and Hook’s constant barrage of questions had not aided in her relaxing.

Regina poured the potion into five vials. She waited and watched as slowly they turned from a green liquid to a shimmering silver that reflected all the colors it came close to. She’d done it!

Hook had to admit he was rather impressed. He was even more impressed when Regina didn’t waist a second. She picked up the vial and downed the vile tasting liquid.

Regina coughed and choked on the potion as she grabbed tightly onto the counter top, her memories returning to her. How she had been willing to put herself into a sleeping curse until she could be reunited with Henry. How infuriating Robin Hood was. How she had made it her life’s mission to get back to see Henry when it was clear that they had to return to this world. How she’d help kill Charming and broken apart Snow’s heart to bring the man back to life. How she’d truly come to befriend Snow and David in the year they spent together in her castle.

“Well, do you remember?” Hook asked as he stood from his stool, maybe slightly concerned for the Queen.

“Yes. I remember everything.” Regina smiled, she’d truly done it. “Quickly. Take these to the others.” Regina pushed three of the potions forward. She was keeping one with her for Henry. Let the others do what they wanted in distributing the other three. “Then tell them I have a plan. I’ll be by the convent as soon as I’ve finished making what I need. At all costs, keep Snow and the baby safe. She needs the baby to complete her spell. Without him or her, she’ll fail. We just need to hold her off until tomorrow morning. If we can do that, she’ll have missed her window of opportunity.”

Hook nodded as he picked up the potions and ran from the house. The sound of the doors slamming closed behind him had Regina falling forward a bit in exhaustion. She hadn’t the slightest idea what she was going to do. She only plan of action that would work against Zelena involved Emma. And it wasn’t like Emma was going to come walking through her front door looking for her.

So she needed something plausible. She needed white magic. Something she just didn’t have in abundance. And knowing Blue Fairy, they wouldn’t have white magic without Emma. That left her back at square one: how to find Emma and Henry. Regina dropped her head onto the counter top.

“Regina!” Slowly Regina’s head lifted up from the counter. Had she fallen asleep? Was she dreaming? Or was that really Ms. Swan’s voice?

Regina quickly escaped the kitchen and went to the front foyer. She stood in front of the front door where she watched as it shook with the impact of Emma’s knocks. “Regina! I know you’re in there. Open the god damn door!”

Regina did, but she did so with her magic as she kept a large birth of space between her and the front door.

The moment the door was open, Emma burst through it. Her eyes ablaze and breath short. She appeared as angry as she had been the day before in Granny’s office and for the life of Regina, she couldn’t imagine why.

“Ms. Swan?” Regina asked wearily.

Emma slammed the door behind her and stepped towards Regina menacingly. “I should beat the shit out of you for the pain you caused. You know that!” Emma yelled as she advanced on Regina.

Regina had no intentions of meeting Emma head to head so she was forced to retreat into the living room.

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, Ms. Swan.”

“Don’t you, Ms. Swan me! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you? How much trouble I’ve gone through to make sure that you weren’t kidnapped or prisoner somewhere? Huh? Do you!?”

Regina was lost. What in the world was Emma talking about? It was as if Emma was once again living under the impression of Regina’s curse. The light bulb went off for Regina. It wasn’t _like_ Emma was living under the spell; Emma truly **_was_** living inside the spell again. Zelena must have cast the spell on her to keep them occupied on how to get Emma’s memories back, not knowing that Regina had perfected the memory potion.

“No. I’m afraid I didn’t know.” Regina spoke softly, hoping that if she could calm Emma down a bit she could somehow get her to take the potion she still had in the kitchen.

“How could you leave us like that?” Regina was horrified as she saw the tears start to swell in Emma’s eyes and the pure strength of will it was taking for them not to fall. “Just up and leave?! We love you. Does that mean nothing to you? Did we mean so little to you that you could just leave us and find someone else to shack up with?”

“Emma, please. I know that you’re hurting.” Regina walked slowly around the coffee table, afraid to be close enough for Emma to touch her. There was deadly intent in Emma’s eyes, and to be honest, she couldn’t blame the blonde. If she had actually left Emma the way that she was beginning to realize the spell made Emma and Henry think she did, she deserved the hostility. All of it. From both Emma and Henry.

“How could you know!? You’re the one that left!” Emma screamed. “You didn’t have to hear Henry crying at night. Hear him ask for you. Watch as he stopped himself from asking about you. Or saying your name. You weren’t there. How could you know! You don’t know anything!”

But Regina did know. She did know what it was like to lose Henry. She knew what it was like to go to bed crying herself to sleep. What she had never allowed herself to imagine was Henry crying himself to sleep thinking of her as she did every night thinking of him.

“God, I would never want that, Emma. Never.” Regina vehemently shook her head from side to side, “I would never want to cause him that kind of pain. Or you. Please, you have to know that I’d never hurt you like that.”

“I thought I did.” Emma whispered, the tears she’d been fighting off finally falling. “I thought that we could trust you. That you weren’t lying when you said you loved us. But you’re just like everyone else.”

“No.” Regina didn’t know why she was playing along with this scheme. It just seemed like it would be easier to convince Emma she was sorry and that she loved her, than to convince Emma that magic existed and she was under a spell. But then again, seeing how hurt Emma truly was, maybe it would have been easier to go for convincing the blonde that magic was real instead. “I’m not like the others. I would never hurt you. You can put your faith in me, Emma. You can put your faith in me. Just like I know I can put my faith in you. I can trust you with all of me. You could do that too. You could trust me.”

“Lies. Your nothing but a lying bitch, Regina.” Emma spat with disdain.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, Emma. I am.” Regina took a chance and stepped towards Emma. This time it was Emma who withdrew from her. “It wasn’t my intentions. You have to know that. Dr. Hopper said I was suffering from something.” She couldn’t recall the excuse that Archie and Emma had concocted to help Henry believe what was happening was real. That he could remember her and she might remember him, but not the importance of him in her life.

“I don’t care what he said you were suffering from. You weren’t suffering from it that first night. You were just angry. And you left when you should have stayed. You should have let me explain!”

Ah, so it was Emma that had said something to cause the fake her to leave. “How could you explain away what you said, Emma?”

“I didn’t mean to say you weren’t Henry’s family! You’re the only family he’s ever known! You’re his mother and he was devastated when you left us.”

“How could I stay though Emma?”

“Easy! You could have talked to me. You could have been angry and not talked to me. You didn’t have to leave us.”

“I can assure you Emma, that there was nothing more I wanted to do than to stay. I never want to lose Henry.” Regina felt her word catch in her throat, “Or you. I’ve loved you…” Regina swallowed thickly. “I’ve loved you for what sometimes feels like an eternity. And yet, I’ve hated you for just as long. You and your freedom from responsibility. You and your lax discipline; how Henry loves you more than he loves me. And yet how you’d risk everything for him…and for me without a second thought. How you saved me over and over again without ever needing to.” Regina stepped closer to Emma, glad to see that she stayed still and allowed Regina to approach her. “Without ever being asked.”

“Then why…?” Emma asked, the hands at her sides grabbing desperately at the material of her shirt and tugging on it, just to give them something to do.

“Because I didn’t have a choice, Emma.” Regina cupped Emma’s cheek and brushed away the tears that still fell from Emma’s expressive blue eyes. “Because I was afraid you could never love me the way I loved you.”

“That’s such bull and you know it. I love you….with every part of me. I love you.” Emma’s hands found themselves on Regina’s waist.

Regina wished, with every part of her heart that Emma would say this to her when she wasn’t affected by a spell. That Emma would be brave enough for the both of them and say what they had never been able to before. “I wish I could be sure of that.”

“You can be! You can be!” Emma repeated herself, shaking Regina a bit the second time around.

Regina bowed her head for a moment, unable to let Emma see the tears that filled her brown eyes.

“I love you, Regina. With all my heart and soul. Please, please just say you do to. That you’ll come home. That you’ll stay. Please. I need you. We need you.”

Regina chocked on a sob as she hid her face against Emma’s shoulder. She clutched at Emma’s shirt as she felt the pain of Emma’s words and the joy of them overcome her. It took her several minutes to calm herself enough to lift her head off of Emma’s shoulder. She lifted both of her hands to Emma’s cheeks. She cupped them both as she stared longingly into Emma’s baby blue eyes. And for just this moment she let herself feel everything she’d ever felt for Emma. Just this one moment she allowed herself the freedom to love the woman in front of her.

“I love you too, Emma. More than you’ll ever know.” Regina took the chance now, knowing she might never have it again. She tilted her head to the side and leaned forward. As she kissed Emma she realized that she’d been wrong in her fantasies. Emma didn’t taste anything like she’d ever imagined. She tasted so much better. The touch of Emma’s soft wet lips against her own stoked something deep within Regina. A fire she hadn’t felt in decades ignited within her stomach and spread like molten flame through her veins.

Her hand slipped to the back of Emma’s neck and held the blonde against her lips as her other rested comfortably against Emma’s waist. They fit so well together. It made the kiss feel perfect. The taste of salty tears left a bitter tang against Regina’s tongue as she swiped her tongue against Emma’s bottom lip seeking to deepen the kiss.

It was as her tongue touched Emma’s and the blonde pulled them flush against each other, that Regina felt something brilliantly white and beautiful pass through her. It was like being encased in happiness and joy. And it was intoxicating.

Unknowingly to the two women, a stream of magic spread out from their joined lips. The effects of which every man, woman, child, and beast in Storybrooke felt to their cores as it broke through the curse Zelena had cursed.

The need to touch Regina was far too great to stop and talk about what they were about to do. Emma was fully aware of who she was. Of what life she had truly lived and she had every intention of spending the next hour or two exploring the body of the woman whom she’d desired for three years.

Emma dropped her hands to Regina’s backside and lifted Regina into her arms. Regina gasped in surprise as she wrapped her legs around the back of Emma’s legs. Emma carried the slender woman to the couch and slowly deposited her upon it. Emma perched herself just above Regina on the couch, ensuring that their lips hardly parted as she moved their positions.

“Emma…” Regina whispered, her hand caressing Emma’s cheek. There was a clarity within Emma’s eyes that Regina wished was truly there and not imagined.

Emma leaned into Regina’s touch. She turned her head and kissed Regina’s open palm. Emma said nothing at all of what she remembered, of what she knew to be her life. She needn’t do so. Not when she could look into Regina’s eyes and see everything she’d wanted to see since she drank that potion. The desire and love she’d craved to see within Regina’s eyes was staring right back at her.

If they came away from this and it was only to be this one night, in this one moment for them to be together, Emma would take it with both hands and grasp onto it so tightly it would last her a lifetime.

Regina’s hand slowly fell away from Emma’s cheek. It drifted through Emma’s hair and found the nape of her neck, where she grasped ahold of it tightly and pulled the blonde’s lips back to her own.

Hands started to explore the contours of the other’s body. Slipping at first beneath the fabric of clothes they wore. Before soon the clothing was quickly removed or torn off unheedingly. Their passion and desire for the each other was all encompassing. It was only as they touched and explored each other that the fire they each felt start within their heart was quelled.

They were both so enchanted with each other the taste of the other’s skin and just how warm it could be underneath their hands. Soon the simple touch of their hands was not enough. They needed a detailed map of each other’s body and using their hands, nails, palms wasn’t enough. Their lips and tongues were needed to explore the areas of the body where the skin dipped and curved and grew wet with arousal. So they learned how delicious it was to swipe their tongues over large expanses of naked skin, to feel the skin bubble with goosebumps and hear the pleasures their touches caused.

And they forgot for just a little while all the troubles surrounding them and the troubles yet to come. For now there was nothing but each other and for now, that was okay.

**End Chapter 13**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 14**

-.-.-.-.-.-

Mary Margaret slipped quietly out of the room she was sharing with Charming. He tried to follow after her but she insisted that she go on this walk alone. She needed to stretch out her tired muscles. Parts of her body were beginning to ache in a way she feared meant the baby would be coming sooner than anyone would like. They were safe from the monkeys and the wicked witch here on the convent grounds. The fairies had erected a protection spell that left all those beneath it protected from the horrors of their fate.

Mary Margaret walked slowly through the gardens on the grounds. They looked so similar to the gardens in Regina’s castle. She had taken to walking through the gardens at night back in the Enchanted Forest in the last year. Many of those nights she came across Regina sitting beneath her apple tree staring off into the darkness of the night sky. Mary Margaret would sometimes stay and watch Regina contemplate the inner musings of her mind. Other nights she would walk away and leave the older woman to her thoughts. And still some nights she would sit beside Regina and speak of the dreams they each had of returning to this very world so they could be reunited with their child.

They had become close in the year they spent in the Enchanted Forest. Regina had put her life on the line many times during the witch’s attacks to protect those who could not protect themselves and Mary Margaret watched as the Evil Queen became a protector, a knight for those who needed it most.

Many times in the last year Mary Margaret had thought of how she could finally tell Henry that his mother was a hero. That there was no doubt in anyone’s mind how very much Regina loved Henry and had come to love them all as well.

Finding a bench within the garden, Mary Margret took a seat and looked up at the stars.

She closed her eyes for a moment and allowed the peace of the green growth around her to calm her. The scent of flowers and herbs and spices growing around her.

Behind her the sound of a breaking twig sounded through the night. Her eyes snapped open as she turned towards the sound. The hairs on the back of her head standing on edge as she saw a shadowed figure coming out from the shadows.

It was the small cylinder gun barrel that kept Snow very, very still as green eyes familiar to her own came into view.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It was just as dawn was breaking over the horizon that Regina opened her eyes. She was surprised to find herself pinned down onto her couch by Emma’s weight. The tickle of Emma’s hair ghosted across her bare shoulder and cheek.

Her body ached in a formally familiar way. It had been quite a while since she had found herself in this type of position. And if there weren’t pressing matters that required their immediate attention, Regina might have found herself inclined to stay with Emma like this for hours to come. But they hadn’t the time. Their son was in need of rescue, again, and they had Snow and her unborn child to worry about.

“Ms. Swan.” Regina didn’t wish to wake Emma at all. Not when she knew that it had been so very long since Emma had a good night’s sleep. “Ms. Swan you need to wake up.” Regina tried once again. This time Emma responded by wrapping herself more securely around her and nuzzling unconsciously into her shoulder. “Emma…now is not the time to snuggle. We have to save Henry.”

“Heard you the first time.” Emma mumbled against Regina’s neck. The touch of her lips and the caress of her breath caused Regina to shiver.

“Then why…”

“Waited for you to say my name. I knew you couldn’t have forgotten it already.” After all, Regina had been moaning it quite a lot last night.

Regina glared and poked Emma in the ribs, hard, causing the blonde to spaz atop Regina, entangling them more intimately together. Emma’s leg fell between Regina’s more securely as she flayed about and instead of leaning most of her weight on the right side of Regina’s body and the couch, she was now more completely atop the former Queen.

“This isn’t the time for games, Ms.” Regina sighed as she caught sight of Emma’s frown. “Emma. We have to save Henry.”

“Again.” Emma added. They had to save Henry, _again_. “I think it’s time that we put that kid in a bubble. Or lock him in a tower somewhere.”

“Let me rephrase. Now isn’t the time for games or jokes. Not while our son is in the hands of a psychopathic witch.”

Emma sighed, she knew this wasn’t the time for games or jokes, but she wasn’t sure how to handle the position she found herself in—literally. Was she just meant to get up and get dressed as if she hadn’t spent the last few hours of the night wrapped around Regina’s naked body? Or maybe she was supposed to pretend that Regina hadn’t confessed to loving her last night and a part of her wanted, no, needed to know if she’d truly meant it.

“I’ll just grab my stuff.” Emma rolled off the couch as unobtrusively as she could and went in search of finding her clothes. Most had been tossed off in unseen directions last night without a care. Now as she was stuck bending over awkwardly to grab her pants and find her bra, Emma kind of wished she’d kept better track of where her clothes had been thrown. She slipped into her pants and zipped them up, trying not to blush under Regina’s obvious scrutiny from where she sat upon the couch, the throw blanket they’d shared wrapped snuggly around her.

The sound of the door breaking down startled Emma.

It put both women on edge as they prepared to defend themselves against whomever came through that door.

What neither of them really expected was to suddenly see Charming, Hook, Robin, and Ruby racing into the room with their weapons drawn.

Emma clutched tightly to her shirt and held it against her chest to keep herself appearing somewhat decent as her father stood twelve feet away from her, staring slack jawed, much like the rest of the cavalry.

“Could you possibly be so kind as to give us a moment to get dressed before you barge in here like animals?” Regina rolled her eyes, wondering if they had even bothered to knock before they’d broken down her front door and come storming into her house as if they had every right to do so.

“Emma…” David croaked as he turned his back quickly to avert his gaze. Mentally reassuring himself that he hadn’t seen anything he wasn’t meant to see.

Hook was staring rather pointedly at Emma as the blonde took the time to slip the shirt she’d been clutching against her shirt on, sans her bra, thus giving those standing in front of her a bit of a show. Not that she truly cared. So long as David’s back was turned she didn’t mind the others catching sight of a bit of flesh.

“Roll up that tongue of yours pirate.” Regina growled possessively as she saw Hook’s visceral reaction to the sight of Emma’s naked chest.

“Only if you promise not to show me what’s under that blanket of yours.”

“Killian!” Emma chided the pirate immediately.

“What can I say love? Not everyone wants to see what you obviously took your time enjoying.” Emma snarled at the pirates abrasive comments. She knew him to be crude and cruel, but it had been quite some time since she’d seen him revert to his old ways.

“Enough. Enough. We don’t have time for this!” Ruby stopped the fight before it oculd truly begin by putting herself between Emma and Hook.

“We’re glad to see that you’re alright.” Robin’s voice was thick and rough with unspoken emotions.

Emma tried not to look at Robin and the look of utter dismay and heartbreak upon his face. This dalliance with Regina wasn’t supposed to become public knowledge. Emma didn’t even know what it truly meant to Regina. She knew what it meant to her, but they hadn’t the time to discuss anything yet and it seemed that it would have to wait until later.

Regina had taken the moment to magically redress herself so that when the blanket fell away from her body she was fully clothed. It was a little trick she knew Emma suddenly envied.

“Why wouldn’t we be alright?” Regina asked, knowing that she would need to take a moment to speak with Robin privately, no matter what it was that the group had to inform them of. She knew now more than she ever had before that what she had with Robin was safe and beautiful. But what she could have with Emma was dangerous and passionate and joyous. Both could equally make her happy, but Regina knew herself well enough to know that it was the passion and dangerous nature of her relationship with Emma that would ensure the survival of their relationship. It would not die and wither like she suspected a continued relationship with Robin would.

She had never meant to hurt Robin. She truly did care for him. But being destined to love him had made it seem so easy to fall in love with him and maybe easy was what she deserved after a lifetime of difficulty.

Regina just…she just didn’t want easy. She wanted difficult and stubborn and fervent. She wanted Emma and she hoped to God that Emma wanted her too, as more than just a one night stand.

Emma and Henry were Regina’s family. Regina knew that even before she’d cast the spell on the two most important people in her life last year. It seemed that the depths of her feelings came out as she’d cast the spell on them and watched them leave her behind. Just as Zelena had said to Emma in her office yesterday afternoon, the spell wouldn’t have worked on Emma if the blonde hadn’t felt at least slightly the same way. Just like the spell wouldn’t have changed as it did if Regina didn’t love Emma the way she did.

“Snow White has been kidnapped.” Robin couldn’t bear to look at anyone; his gaze was permanently fixed to the floor. The grip he held on his bow was so great he feared he might snap it in half.

“What!? When!?” Emma asked, looking at Ruby for the answers she obviously wasn’t going to get from Robin or her father, who couldn’t seem to turn around to look at her just yet.

“Sometime last night after four am. She went for a walk in the gardens to clear her head. She was complaining of back pain and refused to let me go with her. I should have gone with her anyway..” David berated himself for his stupidity. “We thought the grounds were safe. The fairies promised no one with evil intent could get through.”

“Yes, well the fairies promise a great many things that they never do come through on.” Regina rolled her eyes, knowing they should have never trusted Blue Fairy.

“How did you escape her, Swan?” Hook asked, seemingly the only one to realize that only a few hours ago Emma was one of Zelena’s captives.

“I didn’t escape her. They let me go. They cast a spell on me to revert the memory spell Regina cast on me last year. They…” Emma blinked suddenly as she began to recall everything that Walsh had been telling her before he’d blown something onto her face to revert the spell. “They have Henry’s heart.” Emma felt like she was going to be sick knowing that once again a villain held her son’s heart and his life in the very balance.

“That’s impossible! I enchanted it so that…” Regina stopped speaking as her eyes widened.

“What? What is it?”

Regina turned her head to slowly meet Emma’s eyes, her face ashen. “I used blood magic to protect Henry’s heart.”

  
“Why is that significant?” Robin asked, as he was one of the few unaware of Regina and Zelena’s familial connection.

“Blood magic is the one protective spell that Zelena can break through where no one else can because she’s my sister.”

“Do you have any idea where they might be, Emma?” David asked as he turned back towards Emma, grateful to see that she was fully clothed now.

Emma tried to remember what she could vaguely hear as she was regaining consciousness yesterday. It was foggy but she was pretty sure that Walsh had mentioned the wishing well. Making wishes. It had to be the wishing well.

“The wishing well. I think…I think that’s where everything’s going to go down.”

Everyone absorbed that bit of information forlornly. “We have until then before she does anything to hurt Henry or Mary Margaret. She needs them alive until the alignment this afternoon at 5:38.”

“What are we going to do until then?” David’s anxiousness getting the best of him.

“We’re going to get reinforcements and see about arming you all with magical protection amulets from Gold’s shop.” But first, Regina really needed to speak with Robin.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Emma left Regina’s house only after Regina promised to meet them at Gold’s shop. A part of her didn’t want to leave the other woman alone. Especially now that she knew that Zelena not only had Henry’s heart and Mary Margaret, but that she had Regina’s heart as well.

“So you going to tell me what happened last night?” Ruby asked as she sidled up alongside Emma on the walk back into town.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to really talk about it yet, Ruby.” Emma admitted honestly. She would much rather talk to Regina about things first before she started talking to anyone else about it.

“You know that our memories came back, don’t you?” Ruby asked, noticing how David and Hook made it a point to walk several feet ahead of them. The town around them was like a ghost town. Everyone was sticking together inside where they felt like they’d be the safest. The townspeople weren’t stupid. They had all lived through two dark curses and many wars back in the Enchanted Forest. They knew when it was best to make themselves scarce and allow the monarchs to fight the battles for everyone.

“They did?” Emma’s surprise was clearly noted by the werewolf.

“You really didn’t know?”

Emma shook her head, “How? When?”

“Last night around one or so in the morning. It kind of felt like true loves magic. It certainly spread around town as if it were.” Ruby smiled as she watched recognition dawn on Emma’s face. “What exactly were you doing at one in the morning?”

Emma felt her face flush. “True loves kiss?” Her steps faltered as she came to a complete stop.

Ruby nodded encouragingly. “Yes, true love.”

“But…she…she doesn’t, she couldn’t.” Emma fumbled for anything to grasp a hold of to convince her that Regina didn’t in fact love her. That they weren’t meant to be together and yet nothing happened. She could find nothing.

“She does. And you do. And it’s about damn time, don’t you think?” Ruby asked as she bumped Emma’s shoulder to get her moving again. “Come on. Let’s get to Gold’s shop so we can find something to save your son.”

“Yeah…” Emma nodded slowly, still shocked over the information she was trying to process. Regina loved her. Truly loved her. Their kiss broke the curse. True loves kiss broke the curse. Regina was Emma’s true love.

A smile unlike any Emma had ever experienced before blossomed across her face as she walked with renewed purpose towards Gold’s shop.

**End Chapter**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 15**

-.-.-.-.-.-

As part of the plan, Emma and Regina would enter the clearing by the wishing well first. The rest of their allied troops would form a perimeter around the area. Most of the merry men were scattered throughout the woods with Ruby, Hook, Robin Hood, and Charming leading a small group of two or three. Six of the seven dwarfs were somewhere in the woods ready and waiting to go to battle to save their beloved Princess.

Since Regina and Robin had arrived at the shop to meet the rest of the assembled band of rebles, Regina had been quiet and withdrawn. Emma wanted to question if Regina was alright, but knew she wasn’t. It was clear to anyone who took the time to look that Regina was sinking into herself quickly.

“We’ll get Henry, back Regina. And your heart. I promise.”

“It is not only Henry that I am worried about.”

“My mother is more than capable of taking care of herself. She’ll be fine.” Snow White had faced the Evil Queen and lived. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

“Foolish, stupid, ignorant, woman!” Regina mumbled angrily under her breath. She had refused to meet Emma’s eyes since they had begun their trek through the woods. “I am worried about you! And yes, your mother and our son. But I am worried about you. She will go after you immediately. You are her biggest threat. Her weakness is white magic. Which you possess in abundance. She will send all of her beasts of prey after you.”

“I can take care of myself, Regina. I’m not some feeble little thing you have to protect.”

“But don’t you see?” Regina felt the urgent need to shake Emma’s shoulders so that the blonde could realize what Regina was trying to tell her.

“See what?”

“That I cannot lose you. Or Henry. I cannot bear to be without you again.” Regina felt her voice catch in her throat. “I cannot lose _you_ , Emma.” Regina’s eyes glassed over with tears as she stared longingly into the blonde’s blue eyes. “I love you.”

Emma blinked, her heart racing within her chest as her body seemed to infuse itself with warmth. She wanted to tell Regina that she wouldn’t lose her. That they wouldn’t have to be without each other ever again, that everything would be okay. She opened her mouth to respond in kind to Regina but her words died in her throat when just five yards ahead of them beyond the trees Mary Margaret’s scream of agony echoed towards them.

“Mom…” Emma felt her heart plummet into her stomach. Her feet brought her racing out from the trees faster and less alert than she should have been. Her hand shook as she held onto her gun.

The sight of Henry standing above Mary Margaret with his own gun turned Emma’s blood cold. She felt sick to her stomach thinking that her son was responsible for Mary Margaret’s pain.

“Henry, drop the gun!” Emma ordered her son as she held her position several feet away from the wishing well. Zelena was on the opposite side of the well, the stone structure blocking most of her from sight, but left just enough for Emma to get a clear shot when the time came.

Along the well there were several candles burning with foul scented herbs and there were three chests aligned in the compass locations of the well.

“He won’t listen to you, Savoir. I’m afraid he’s only obedient to me.”

“You mean subservient to you.”

“Hmm…perhaps that is what I meant. Either way, dear, you best be putting away that gun. You wouldn’t want dear Henry here to get nervous and pull the trigger, now would you?”

Emma’s jaw cracked as she ground her teeth together. No, she wouldn’t want her son to pull the trigger and shoot her pregnant mother. Slowly, she lowered her gun as she watched Walsh step out from somewhere behind the well, closets to where Zelena stood and Emma could not see due to Henry’s position.

“Mom…are you okay?” Emma asked her mother, though her eyes never left Zelena and Walsh as they whispered softy between each other.

Mary Margaret was laid out upon several pillows and what looked like a picnic blanket. It would have been a serene sight if it weren’t for the bright red blotches of her skin, the sweat coming out of every pore, and the way she was clutching feebly at her stomach.

“Fuck…” Emma whispered under her breath, realizing that the scream her mother had released was because she was in labor.

“Emma…it’s too early!” Mary Margaret cried, hardly able to lift her head high enough to get a good look at Emma.

Emma knew somewhere just beyond the tree line, Charming was panicking. Emma was panicking and it wasn’t even her child; just her sibling. The panic helped her focus though. It kept her centered and aware of her surroundings. Like how the earth around them was slowly shifting. It wasn’t as if it were an earth quake. It was more like from deep within the earth itself the magic that had saturated the soil for the last two years started to rise up from it to assist Zelena with her spell.

“Where’s my son’s heart?” Emma asked, unable to look at the zombie like eyes her son possessed at the moment. It was like looking into someone who didn’t have a soul and she couldn’t’ see her baby like that. Not her Henry.

“That depends, Savoir.”

“On what?”

Zelena looked up from her preparations with a sickeningly sweet smile, “Just what are you willing to give me to get it back?”

“What do you want?” Emma didn’t want to play Zelena’s games. She wanted to get right to the point of the matter, and if that meant she had to make a deal with the devil’s mistress, than she’d do it. She’d already made a deal with the devil himself and come out fine on the other side. How hard could it be to do so again?

“Well, that’s simple. What I’ve always wanted from you, my dear white knight.” Zelena slowly stalked her way around the circular well so she was now standing just behind Henry.

Emma snarled, “Which is what?!”

“Your heart of course.” Zelena batted her eyelashes as if trying to entice Emma. It just made the blonde sick and seemed to infinitely entertain the redhead.

Emma knew she couldn’t refuse this offer. “If I give you my heart. You’ll give me back Henry’s.”

“That would be the deal.”

Emma looked between Henry’s statuesque figure and her mother lying helplessly on the floor, unable to move from her spot with the fear of Henry pulling the trigger.

“Don’t do it Emma!” Mary Margaret insisted. “There has to be another way.”

Emma took stock of everything around them. Of the cavalry she knew waited in the bushes and of the flying animals she knew were hidden somewhere above their heads in the trees just waiting for the right signal.

“Do not even think about handing that woman your heart.” Regina ordered from just behind Emma.

Emma had forgotten the older woman had even followed her out from their hiding place.

“Well, if it isn’t my dear darling sister. I did wonder how long it would take for the spell to be broken. I have to say it took longer than I thought it would.” The fact that these meddlesome peons defeated not only Pan but Rumpelstiltskin astounded Zelena. They couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag. Zelena smirked, “Who did break it? Was it the White Knight and her darling pirate?”

Regina stiffened, Robin had mentioned how the curse had been broken the night before. Regina hadn’t processed regaining her memories the night before. She recognized that she had the memories of the past year while kissing Emma but had been otherwise consumed for the better part of the evening. She knew that what she and Emma had done may have been right for them, but she owed Robin more.

She hadn't wanted to hurt him. He was a good man. A kind and generous, if not annoying, man. His qualities were similar to Emma's in many ways and yet they were very different. Robin might be her destiny but Emma held her heart in ways that no one ever had, or ever could.

Perhaps the fairy dust had been mistaken. Perhaps it had chosen for her the best match available at the time. Emma was still years from being a twinkle in Snow's eyes at the time. Regina had never trusted in Fairies before, and she refused to put her trust in their magic. They had never helped her in the past and even now they lay away in their convent far from the danger like cowards. Their magic wasn’t going to dictate to Regina who she be with. Not when she wanted nothing more than to attempt to have the love and life Emma spoke so passionately about from her fake memories.

Zelena’s curse had been broken by true loves kiss. Regina had been frightened to admit that her love for Emma wasn't more than a fleeting emotion. Emma was her true love. There was nothing of greater value to her than Emma and Henry. Regina stood behind Emma willing to do anything to ensure the safety of her and their son. Anything…!

“Yes.” Emma lied. Better for Zelena to think that Emma truly loved Hook than Regina. It would keep Zelena from using Regina against Emma as much as she might have if she knew the truth.

“Well then, congratulations, Savior. You’ve found your truelove. Now it’s time for you to give me your heart in exchange for Henry’s.”

Zelena opened the palm of her hand and both Emma and Regina were transfixed to the sight of the glowing gold heart sitting in the center of her hand.

Emma and Regina involuntarily took a step closer to Zelena at the sight.

“Give my son back his heart!” Regina demanded, her hands itching with the need to take that precious heart away from her crazy sister.

“Not until I receive what I want.” Zelena noticed how Emma looked beseechingly at Regina, as if hoping the other woman could give her a reason not to give up her own heart to save their son. To help strengthen Emma’s resolve Zelena took a moment to whisper something into as she began to squeeze the heart she had in her hands.

Henry screamed in pain and stumbled upon the small incline of the hill. His hand still holding the gun with it pointed at the ground between where Mary Margaret lay in labor and Emma who stood only twelve feet away.

“Stop!” Emma and Regina screamed at the same time as they each took three steps towards Henry.

The gun Henry was holding went off, stopping both women from approaching any further. Though their bodies were angled in a way that would allow them to race forward the moment the coast was clear.

“Please, stop. Stop!” Emma begged as she found herself clutching at her shirt above her own heart.

“I’ll kill you. I swear to you, I will. Release his heart!” Regina threatened, her body trembling with the overwhelming _need_ to protect her son.

Zelena tilted her head to the side as she laughed at the desperation within both women and how Emma became self-sacrificing while Regina reverted to her darker side and issued useless threats.

“I’ll give it to you.” Emma panted as she gave her word. “Stop, stop hurting him.”

“No! Emma!” Mary Margaret protested while Regina lost her breath over Emma’s willing sacrifice.

Regina knew that the moment Zelena had Emma’s heart she was going to crush it. Regina grabbed a hold of Emma’s shoulder to hold her back from walking to her certain death. Emma was Zelena’s only weakness and she had all the cards. Regina had nothing to scrounge up to save them from this situation. “You can’t!” _Please…_ Regina wanted to beg. “She’ll crush it.” Regina knew she could not stand watching another one of her lover’s hearts being crushed in front of her very eyes.

“Then let her.” Emma stared into Regina’s panicked eyes. “I’m sorry.” Emma whispered, wishing she could express how very sorry she was that she wouldn’t be able to show Regina just how happy they could be together. “Take Henry’s heart and get him out of here. Save my mom if you can.”

Regina bowed her head once. Her gaze falling away to the floor, unwilling to stare longingly at Emma’s face as if it were the last time she would see it filled with color and life.

“No, Emma! Be reasonable!” Mary Margaret begged even as she yowled in pain and clutched at her stomach as the baby prepared to make its entrance into this world.

Regina shook her head minutely from side to side, unwilling to fully agree to this plan. It was a catch 22. She could lose Henry, or she could lose Emma. She could only save one.

Regina fought for control of her emotions. She needed to close herself off and she needed to do so now. She could not bear to watch Emma die in front of her with her emotions so open and raw. With a sinking heart Regina released Emma’s arm, her fingers gliding down the length of Emma’s arm till not even the tips of their fingertips could touch anymore.

Emma stepped towards Zelena resolutely. She would do anything to protect her son.

“No! Emma...Take my heart. Please, take mine!” Snow begged, her pleadings appearing deaf to those around her.

As Emma made it closer to Zelena she stopped, “You take mine, and give Henry’s to Regina.”

Zelena smiled, “Deal.” The green skinned woman handed Walsh, Henry’s heart. “Give that to Regina when I have Emma’s heart in my hand.”

Regina stepped forward to receive Henry’s heart, glad to no longer hear Henry’s pained moans as Walsh did nothing to harm the heart within his hands.

“Now, Savoir. Lets see about getting that heart of yours.” Zelena thrust her hand into Emma’s chest. Emma bit down savagely onto her lip to keep from crying out at the pain. Zelena frowned as she tried to pull Emma’s heart from her chest, but found she couldn’t. Emma knew this would happen and waited, unwilling to explain that no one could take out her heart. Emma smirks as she focuses on the love she has for Henry and Regina and her mother.

Zelena struggles to pull the heart out, groaning in frustration. “What magic is this?”

Emma smirks as she meets Zelena’s confused gaze, “Mine.” Just as Emma had done to Cora, she pushed the witch attempting to steal her heart back with nothing but thoughts of love. The beam spread out like that of true loves kiss and pushed Zelena backwards. The green witch stumbled and had to grab onto the well to keep upon her feet.

“You tricked me!” Zelena’s lips curled up with a snarl.

The beam passed harmlessly through Henry, Regina, and Mary Margaret but pushed Walsh around. Regina took the opportunity Walsh’s disorientation offered her and grabbed Henry’s heart. As she held the organ protectively against her chest she backed away from Walsh and made her way towards Henry.

“Henry! Shoot Regina.” Zelena commanded.

Regina smirked, thinking her sister’s orders were for nothing since she no longer had control over her son. She held Henry’s heart. Zelena had no power over Henry.

Emma turned to see Henry raising his arm and his finger squeezed the trigger.

“NO!” Emma screamed, the sound of the gunshot echoing with her scream around the open forest.

Snow covered her mouth to stifle her own scream as she turned horrified eyes towards Regina.

Regina’s smirk slowly slipped from her face as she took an involuntary step backwards. The heart she was cradling close to her chest felt warm, but there was a burning sensation that hurt more than anything she had ever felt before. It tore through her stomach and left her short of breath. She couldn’t even scream or question how they had been tricked by Zelena yet again.

“Regina!” Emma tried to turn around in an attempt to get back to Regina before she collapsed. Her attempt was thwarted when Zelena wrapped her in a binding spell, the green magic keeping her still, forcing her to watch as Regina collapsed to her knees and then fell backwards onto her back, still protectively clutching Henry’s heart to her chest.

Emma snapped her head back to look at Zelena who was exaggeratedly pouting as she looked down at her fallen sister. “Good boy, Henry.” Zelena patted Henry on the shoulder as she walked passed him, “How are those contractions coming along, your majesty?” Zelena asked with a wicked sneer as she walked passed Mary Margaret, who couldn’t even attempt to reach out to grab at Zelena without curling in on herself in pain. The baby was coming; the contractions were only minutes apart.

Zelena’s feet sank into the soil as she stepped right in front of where Regina lay. She clicked her tongue, tisking, at her sister before she bent down and took the heart Regina feebly tried to keep a hold of.

“Do be a good little sister and stay alive for a little while longer.” She patronized Regina by patting her on the cheek before she walked over to where Walsh was collecting himself. She waved her hand over the heart in her hands and everyone watched as the gold tint of it disappeared to reveal a blackened heart. It was not Henry’s heart.

“As promised. Your heart.” Zelena stuck the organ back into Walsh’s chest.

Walsh reveled in having his heart back after so long a time. He frowned as he looked at the people around him, truly feeling things for the first time in nearly three decades. The weight of his actions fell upon his shoulders and left him struggling with the emotional onslaught.

“Now that, that’s done.” Zelena turned her eyes back to Emma. She walked up to the blonde who was struggling defiantly against the bindings Zelena had around her. “You won’t find it as easy to break free of these binds.” She had made sure to strengthen the spell that would trap Emma after seeing how ‘easily’ she’d broken free of the last.

Zelena walked a slow circle around Emma. She looked at Emma like she was a puzzle that needed to be solved. “How to get your heart.”

Emma stared out into the forest around her, wondering where the others were. Surely the sound of the gunshots should have sent them into action!

“Damn you! Damn you!” Emma cursed as she tried to force her shoulders from right to left, but couldn’t get them to move more than a centimeter.

“No, Savoir. Damn you!” Zelena hissed her face a hairsbreadth apart from Emma’s. “Damn you and your mother, and your grandmother.” Zelena’s hate for all three women darkened her already green skin to a nightly forest green shade. “Damn your whole family line for everything they stole from me!”

“We didn’t do anything to you. You attacked us first.” Snow attempted to delegate knowing that at this point they had very little options.

“But you did. Your mother stole the life I should have had when she betrayed my mother and forced her to send me away. My mother should have been Queen of the White Kingdom. My mother should have raised me in the castle YOU grew up in.”

Snow’s eyes widened. They’d known that Zelena wished to change the past, but none knew just what the gain would be for her. Now it was becoming clear.

“Who is your father?” Snow asked, suddenly feeling sick thinking this wicked woman might be an older sister to her as well.

Zelena chuckled, truly amused. “Fear not Snow White. We are not related.”

A part of Snow was grateful to hear that. “Perhaps in another life we will be.” Zelena smiled, truly delighted at the idea. “How fitting. The life that of your children will give me—will give **us,** the life where we are siblings.”

Snow felt sick to her stomach. She turned away from Zelena and emptied the contents of her stomach just before another contraction hit and she screamed in pain with it.

“Now, Savoir.” Zelena looked at Emma again, allowing Snow to suffer through her labor alone.

Henry in the meanwhile still stood with his arm outstretched, the gun in his hand that he’d already fired aimed at Regina ready to fire again should the order be given.

“How to get your heart...” She considered Emma critically before she snapped her fingers together, realizing how she could get the blonde’s heart.

“Henry, be a dear and point the gun at your grandmother.” Without conscious thought Henry followed Zelena’s directive, his body turning to face Mary Margaret. “Now, you have a choice, Emma. You can give me your heart or I can have Henry kill his grandmother and uncle or auntie. He’s already killed his mother. Save him the horrors of knowing he’s killed his grandmother too.”

“Henry…Henry, fight it, Henry. Fight it!” Mary Margaret coached, knowing it was impossible to break through the type of control that Zelena had over her grandson. Not when she had his heart.

Emma grimaced as she ground her teeth together. “And I have your word that you’ll let him go, and my mother?”

“Yes.” Zelena lied. Zelena had no intentions of letting any of them go. She needed all four hearts to make this spell work. She needed the heart of the truest believer, to guide her with the faith only it could to the moment in time she needed. She needed the truest of hearts, the heart of true love incarnate, to power the spell. She needed the most resilient heart to withstand the laws of time and push her through the barriers around each time line. And finally she needed the heart of second chances, the heart of the littlest charming yet to be born, to give her a second chance at a new life in the new world she was creating for herself. Zelena would have her happy ending and the White-Charming bloodline would die to give it to her.

Emma cringed as she recognized the lie. But what choice did she have? Regina was laying on the ground bleeding to death, her mother was in labor a month early, and her son had just shot his mother!

“Tick tock, Savior.” Zelena gave Emma a few more seconds before she turned to address Henry, “Henry pull the…”

“Alright!” Emma screamed, stopping Zelena from giving Henry the order to kill Mary Margaret. “Alright. You have to release me. No one can take my heart but me.”

Zelena seemed skeptical, but she released Emma’s torso from the spell, allowing Emma to move only one of her arms.

Emma’s hand slowly rose to her chest and she focused on everything she was feeling. The pain and agony of knowing Regina was right behind her, hurt, bleeding and dying. The horror of having watched Henry shoot Regina and hearing Henry’s and Mary Margaret’s cries of pain.

Closing her eyes Emma pushed her own hand into her chest. She felt very little pain as she found her heart within her chest and slowly began to pull it out. Breathing as evenly as she could Emma withdrew her heart and held it in her open palm.

“Emma…” Mary Margaret breathed out resignedly. There was nothing either of them could do, and they both knew it.

 _‘Damn it, David. Now would be a great time to come and save the day;’_ both mother and daughter thought simultaneously.

Unlike Henry’s heart which was gold, Emma’s heart was a swirling mess of colors, predominantly silver and blue. Though there was a spattering of grey and black and gold. It didn’t even look like a heart. It looked like a miniature lava lamp. The swirls of color were constantly moving and pulsed a pure aura of light in a pattern matching that of a beating heart.

Zelena stared at Emma’s heart in awe. She’d never seen such a beautiful heart before. “You truly are different than them, Savoir.” Zelena’s breathy awe translated into how gentle she took the heart from Emma’s hand and cradled it in both of her own. The wicked witch took a few moments to marvel at the splendor of the heart. Just a few moments.

Moments that passed quickly.

There was still work to be done.

“Thank you for your sacrifice, Savoir.” Zelena genuinely thanked Emma as she walked up to the well and put Emma’s heart into one of the extravagantly decorated chests. “Now we can truly begin.”

**End Chapter 15**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 16**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

David crouched low in the brush to the north end of the well. Hook and some of his shipmates were taking up the west while Ruby and some of the dwarves were taking up flank on the east side. Robin and the merry men were scattered through the forest so they could get vantage points and views of the flying monkeys when they arrived.

The sound of Mary Margret’s screams tore at David as he refrained from charging into the clearing like Emma and Regina had. He couldn’t afford for their positions to be given away. He had to wait. Just wait. He would save his family, just like he always did.

It was when Regina was shot that he began to doubt that he could save his family at all. The doubt ate at him, keeping him immobile until he saw the glowing aura of his daughter’s heart resting in Zelena’s hands. The notion of Emma sacrificing herself for Henry was one he shared. He would die to protect his children.

So it was with a quick nod to Leroy and Michael, the Huntsman, that he forwent waiting. He charged into the clearing around the wishing well, determined to reach his wife.

It was as his allies converged on the well that all hell broke loose. Flying Monkeys popped out from under piles of fallen leaves as they jettisoned into the air and began swooping down in varying attack patterns.

There were arrows flying overhead and animalistic cries of pain as well as the sounds of men groaning with exertion and injuries as they all valiantly fought against the strong beasts.

Hook reached the well first. He disabled Henry as soon as he walked up to the boy. Thankfully the witch was too busy preparing for her spell to give Henry any orders on who to shoot with his weapon. Hook knocked the gun out of Henry’s hand and took the extra precaution to knock the boy unconscious.

Ruby uses her own supernatural strength to get to Snow. She kneels down next to her friend and checks to see how far along she is.

“Ruby, help Emma. Just, just stand me up.” Mary Margaret begged, “Stand me up!” But it was as Snow saw the look of worry upon Ruby’s face that she knew she wasn’t going to be delivering her child in the safety of a hospital or even her own apartment. She was going to have her bbay while battle raged around her….again. “No…no…no…” Mary Margaret sobbed even as she helped Ruby position her properly to begin pushing.

“What’s going on there, love?” Hook asked as he used Henry’s pistol to shoot at one of the flying monkeys that dipped a little too close to the werewolf.

“She’s having the baby.”

“Here!?” Hook’s eyes widened even as he remained alert and gave Ruby and Mary Margret cover. His eyes tracked over to where Charming and the dwarves were fighting hand to hand with some of the monkeys that seemed to prefer to fight with weapons rather than their claws.

Ruby’s men were around the well trying to break through the barrier that Zelena put up around herself. She was mixing herbs and potions and dropping things into the well as she muttered under her breathe.

“Get to Zelena!” Ruby yelled to Hook. “I’ve got her.”

Hook took notice of how the well was beginning to bubble over with an ominous misma. “Leave me with the easy task, why don’t you.” He complained under his breath as he made his way closer to the well. Sleepy, was trying to bash through the barrier with his pickax, but was having no such luck breaking through it. Hook didn’t want to take the chance of shooting at the barrier just for the bullet to ricochet back at him so he studied everything around him. Trying to find a way into the barrier to stop the witch’s spell.

Several feet behind Hook, Robin ran and slid under an attacking beast, shooting as his back rest against the soil. The hit was true and the monkey flew several feet away before collapsing onto the ground with the arrow embedded within him.

He quickly got up and made his way to Regina. He fell heavily to his knees once at her side. As gently as he could he turned her over. “Regina…I’ve got you.” Robin promised as he took off his cloak and pushed it against the woman’s stomach trying to staunch the blood flow.

Regina’s eyes were glazed and her skin a sickly grey. Her breathing came in short wisps, the sound of blood filling her lung troublesome. “Hen…henry?” Regina asked after her son immediately.

“The boy is fine.” Robin could see the unconscious form of Henry laying several feet away from Ruby and Snow White. “We have to get you out of here.” Robin commented as he worked to get Regina up onto her feet. The scream that tore out of Regina’s throat at the sudden movement stopped him, but only for a moment. No matter what, he needed to get Regina away from the battle ground.

Hook suddenly realized how to break through the barrier. He grabbed one of the potions that Regina made them all carry with them. “Gentleman, the potions!” He called out to the dwarves still struggling to get into the barrier. Sleepy, Doc, and Sneezy stop and pull out their own potion bottles. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three!” He yells and all four of them throw the potions at their sides of the barrier. With a loud ‘BOOM’ the barrier explodes, knocking them all off their feet, and leaving Zelena defenseless.

“Attack!” Hook jumped to his feet and began rushing towards the well.

Zelena was rocked forward by the barrier breaking down. She glared at the men who dared interrupt her. She flicked each of the three dwarves that came charging at her aside easily, sending them flying high into the air where one of her precious pets scooped them up to deal with them. However the pirate is harder to dispatch because of the amulet he’s wearing around his neck that is deflecting her dark magic.

Zelena stared at the man and then just behind him where Emma was struggling vainly to get out of the barrier still wrapped tightly around her, she smirked. She picked up Emma’s heart and whispered into it. “Defend me.” Unlike Regina’s heart, Emma never protected her own heart from being controlled by others as she’d never thought anyone would get a hold of it.

There was suddenly a green glow to Emma’s eyes. She stopped trying to fight the barrier and simply walked right out of it.

Hook was two feet away from Zelena when he felt someone grab his arm and spin him around and down so his chest was vertical with the ground. He doesn’t have the time to react before Emma’s knee knocked into his chest three times. His breath left him with a whoosh.

Gasping he fell forward as Emma put herself between Zelena and himself.

Looking just around Emma Hook can see Zelena’s smirk. He glared darkly at the dark witch and stood up. “Emma, I know it’s hard. But you have to fight her control over you.”

Emma couldn’t hear him. She marched forward and began a hand to hand fight with Hook, putting Hook at a disadvantage. He wouldn’t hurt Emma but Emma had no qualms about hurting him.

As Hook tried to merely defend himself against Emma’s attacks, Ruby looked into Mary Margaret’s eyes and helped her friend hold her legs wide. “Okay, now push!” Ruby’s eyes fell down to between Snow’s legs where she saw the baby’s head crowning.

Mary Margaret screamed as she pushed and tried not to think about the flying monkeys literally soaring above her head or how there were arrows, knives, and axes being thrown all around her. Or how her grandson was lying dead to the world for the next few hours and her daughter was just behind Ruby beating Hook bloody. This wasn’t how she was supposed to have this baby. Things were supposed to be different. This was her second chance to get things right.

“Ahhhh…..” Mary Margaret screamed as she pushed again, and again.

“That’s it, Snow. That’s it. Almost there. Almost there….” Ruby encouraged as best she could, always alert of their surroundings.

Suddenly across the battle ground the sound of a baby’s first wail pierced the air.

Everyone stopped for a moment to marvel at the sound of new life. But it was Zelena whose eyes glowed the most brightly at the new arrival. With a triumphant smile Zelena made her way towards Snow White and the baby she needed to start the sacrificial part of her spell.

Ruby took off her shirt and wrapped the infant into it before she handed him to Snow, “It’s a boy.” She whispered, unable to keep herself from smiling encouragingly at her friend.

Snow started to sob as she held onto her son. “Now, let’s get you out of here.” Ruby was standing up to move to pick Snow up into her arms and carry her away when she heard footsteps just behind her.

Thinking it was Zelena she turned around to attack the witch, her fingernails grown and sharp, her teeth elongating as she channeled her own beast. She swiped her arms down swiftly, cutting into the shoulder and face of her would be attacker.

The cry of pain was not Zelena’s, but Emma’s. Ruby was momentarily shocked. “Emma…” She gasped surprised and ashamed to have injured her friend. It was only when Emma dropped her hands away from her bleeding face that Ruby noticed the green tint to her eyes.

Emma wasn’t exactly Emma anymore.

“Shit!” Ruby gasped as she was lifted up into the air and tossed away like she weighed nothing. Her back connected with a tree trunk. Ruby fell to the base of the tree sprawled out and struggling to get back up.

“Emma… Emma this isn’t you. This isn’t. Please, Emma. It’s your brother. He’s your brother!” Mary Margaret cried as she started to crawl backwards trying uselessly to get away from Emma and Zelena, who stood just behind Emma.

“Get me the child.” Zelena commanded and Emma didn’t even bend down to take the baby. She merely opened her arms for the child and the little boy appeared in her arms. Without having to consciously think about it, Emma was able to channel her magic.

With her baby brother in hand, Emma turned her back on her screaming crying mother and handed him over to Zelena. The boy had blue green eyes just like Emma and was wailing his little lungs out in fear.

“You will do nicely.” Zelena commented as if the boy was nothing more than a prized steed.

“NO!” Charming’s fearful scream echoed across the clearing as he doubled his efforts to get to his wife and child.

Hook tried to grab ahold of Zelena’s leg as she passed him, but his face was bloodied and bruised. His eyes were hardly able to see anything past the swelling that had already taken over, yet he tried.

Zelena easily kicked him off and kept on towards the well, Emma falling in step just behind her.

Zelena stood at the mouth of the well with the wailing infant for only a moment. She whispered something in latin before she lifted the child up and outstretched her arms so the baby was held over the mouth of the well. Mary Margaret knew there was no one close enough to save her child and the color from her face drained as she nearly passes out.

With a sickening smile Zelena lets go of the baby. Around the clearing people struggle with renewed purpose to defeat their enemies. The foot soldiers here to stop the Wicked Witch finally gaining ground against the horde of flying monkeys till there is only one left: Walsh.

But it is too late.

The baby falls several inches into the well before his progress down into the depths of it stop. Zelena watches as the baby rises up out of the well and flies straight into the arms of the one woman whom she thought she’d handled already.

“Regina…” Zelena snarled as she watched her sister cradle baby Charming securely against her chest, away from her wounded side. Her eyes are still bleary and she looks like she can hardly hold her own weight up let alone the added addition of the child. But she manages. Just behind her Robin stands with his bow drawn, an arrow pointed at Zelena.

Zelena screams in frustration when she realizes she cannot simply pull the child back from Regina’s arms. In an effort to distract Regina from the protection spell she erected around her and the baby Zelena started tossing fire balls at the people around them, knowing her sister would try and protect them.

Regina uses her bad arm to deflect the magic as best she can. Sleepy takes the chance to rush at Zelena thinking the witch is duly distracted. She wasn’t. Regina missed the fireball sent sleepy’s way. Sleepy was hit head on by one of Zelena’s fireballs and was gone in a burst of smoke and flame. His scream made everyone cringe as the allies do their best to avoid Zelena’s magic, no one risking it to rush at Zelena again.

Robin used the time to shoot several of his arrows at Zelena, looking for an opening. Regina was quickly losing energy and she knew she couldn’t keep up for much longer.

“Someone DO something!” Regina falters, one of her legs giving out as Zelena attacks the barrier erected around her and the baby.

Charming saw Regina falter and knew he hadn’t the time to find a way to break through Zelena’s attack.

He orders the men around him to start firing at Zelena from all ends. With her focus on Regina and the people on her sides she couldn’t protect her back.

Charming was hopeful as he watched the weapons fly towards Zelena’s back. It was just as his own sword was about to embed itself into Zelena’s back that white magic stopped the weapons, making them hang listlessly in the air. Charming’s eyes tracked back to Emma and saw his daughter’s arm raised holding the weapons from reaching their target.

Zelena knocked Regina onto her knees with a well-placed fireball to her sister’s left. The barrier faltered and Zelena called the child back into her arms as if he were nothing more than a basketball being passed back and forth. With the infant in her arms she turned her back on Regina and marched back to the well. Now with all the ingredients needed she could cast her spell.

“Emma, handle Regina.” Zelena commanded the blonde who stood guard for her.

With the pickax, knives, arrows, and Charming’s sword still held in the air by her magic Emma turned swiftly so her back was to her father and she could once again face forward. The weapons traveled with her and aimed themselves directly at the fallen woman on the floor.

It was as the weapons soared through the air towards Regina and Zelena prepared to drop her brother into the well behind her that time stood still for Emma.

In the deep back of her mind Emma was screaming at herself to stop. She had been screaming and ranting and having a mental hissy fit since Zelena first commanded her to defend her. Emma wanted nothing more than to have beat Zelena as senseless as she’d beaten Hook. The poor man hadn’t even tried to harm her. Ruby’s attack on the other hand still stung and some childish part of her wondered if she’d now become a werewolf because of the scratches. That part was small and far far away from the centered consciousness that was still railing against Zelena’s control.

It wasn’t until Emma’s eyes saw the tip of Charming’s sword approaching Regina’s chest that something inside of her snapped. Regina’s head was held high and her eyes were looking right at Emma, looking right through the hazy spell and seeing Emma deep beneath the mind control. It was the look of love in Regina’s eyes that pulled at the part of Emma’s chest where her heart should be.

The weapons stopped their flight centimeters away from Regina.

Upon the surface of the well, Zelena noticed that Emma’s heart was beginning to glow brighter and brighter. The aura around it growing larger and larger until it was the size of a large box, the colors that of a revolving silver, blue and gold sphere.

“Wha…” Zelena’s words were cut off as the sphere contracted until it was the size of a baseball and then with a ‘POP’ blew up and out. The light was so bright it blinded everyone in the clearing.

Zelena screamed as the white magic washed over her, burning her green skin to the point of blisters forming all over her body. The weight of the baby was too much and she let him go.

It was only as the light dimmed, only seconds after it had brightened, that Zelena saw the infant nestled safely in his mother’s arms. The hearts that had been placed strategically upon the well’s edge were gone. Emma’s heart was nowhere to be seen, but as the blonde fell to her knees and held Regina’s eyes, she felt it beat steady within her chest.

Henry was slowly waking up, his hand upon his chest where his heart was once again safe and sound. Regina’s hands slid to the bullet wound she’d suffered to find the wound gone. She stared down at her stomach and noticed even the blood that had seeped into her clothing was gone.

  
As Regina looked up at Emma in shock she noticed the bloody scratches that’d marred Emma’s face only moments ago were gone. All around the clearing were disoriented people holding various body parts as they tried to stand up from where they’d been lying just moments before as winged apes.

Emma was so overwhelmed with the magic and the emotions returning to her that the edges of her vision started to close in around her.

Emma reached out towards Regina as she fell face first into the dirt, the world a welcome black after such a bright white.

**End Chapter 16**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 17**

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Henry sat in the most uncomfortable plastic chair watching silently as Regina paced back and forth. The sound of her boot heels tapped melodically as she continued her route. She would walk from the end of the row of uncomfortable plastic chairs to the windowed area of Emma’s exam room. There was a curtain pulled blocking everyone’s view as Dr. Stanley, whom Henry had never met before but was supposed to be a powerful witch doctor, assessed Emma’s condition.

Doctor Whale was treating Mary Margaret and the baby on the other end of the hallway. If Henry looked down the corridor he could see David pacing back and forth in the same fashion as his mother. Lined along the wall on either side of the hallway were various groups of people waiting to hear word on Mary Margaret and the baby. There were only a few really truly waiting to hear about how Emma’s was doing. That annoyed Henry. It made him angry.

But a lot of things were making him angry. He had spent the first hour they arrived in the hospital in tears as Regina held onto him as if she were never going to let him go again. He lost count of how many times he apologized for hurting…for **_shooting_** his mom. Just thinking about having pulled the trigger made his body tense up as a lump formed in his throat.

He was happy that his mom was okay now. That there wasn’t even a scar left from where she’d been shot—he’d asked to see because he didn’t really believe that she was telling the truth. He’d touched the part of her stomach that he knew he’d shot her and felt nothing but smooth skin. With a sigh he’d accepted that there would at least be no physical reminded of his actions. Though the emotional and mental wounds it caused weren’t even close to being considered scars. They were new and festering and would take time to get past.

“What is taking this bloke so long?” Hook stepped away from the wall where he’d been leaning. Of everyone he was just as impatient as Regina and Charming, but he wasn’t pacing a floor into the linoleum floor.

“I don’t know.” Regina continued to pace, not even sparing Hook a glance.

“What happened back in that clearing? How is it that you’re healed?” Hook had waited over an hour to ask the questions that had been burning his tongue since they’d all retreated to the hospital.

He had been about to interrogate Regina on what kind of magic had literally made Zelena disappear and healed everyone—including him a half an hour ago, but Blue Fairy’s arrival had stopped him. The matron had demanded to see Emma immediately as she was the most qualified to help Emma. Now, even to Hook that had been fishy, and he was a pirate. He knew fishy characters when he saw them, and Blue Fairy stunk to high heaven of lies and deceit.

Regina had physically put herself in front of the door to Emma’s exam room, blocking the woman’s path. “You’ll have to walk over my dead body before you see her.”

Charming had finally left the hallway by Snow White to see what the commotion was all about. When Blue fairy explained that she wished to examine Emma for herself but was being stopped by the Evil Queen, everyone had expected Charming to side with the fairy. He surprised everyone by requesting that the Blue Fairy leave Dr. Stanley to his work and for her to return to the convent, where she would be safe from the newest threat.

“What threat? I thought the Wicked Witch had been defeated.” Blue had become worried at the appearance of another evil so soon after the first had been vanquished.

Charming had sneered at Blue, showing his obvious dislike of the woman he had once trusted and called friend, “Me.”

Hook recalled how Ruby gasped and stared open mouthed at Charming as he leaned threateningly into Blue’s face. “You and yours stay away from my family. Or you will find just how unsafe you can be when someone puts a target on **YOUR** back and those with power to help do _nothing_ to defend you.”

“We had no choice for the protection of the balance and greater good…”

“Enough!” Regina cut Blue off before she could continue to spout her diatribe. “You make your own rules and claim to be good for ensuring the balance of good and evil. But all you really do is ensure the balance of power is always in your favor. You are nothing but a two faced conceited power hungry bitch.”

“How _dare_ you!”

“No, Blue! How dare you.” Ruby chimed in. “How dare you label those you are afraid of and don’t understand or fear as evil.” Like herself. Blue had never liked her because of her werewolf nature and had warned Charming and Snow on several occasions that it was a mistake for them to trust her. She had yet to prove disloyal to Snow and Ruby had watched time after time as Blue orchestrated betrayals but as the puppeteer she created an excuse that clouded her involvement and responsibility to accept the consequences.

“I think it would be best if you left, love.” Hook had put himself between Ruby and Blue when it looked like the fairy might actually attack the feisty werewolf.

Blue turned to Charming as if expecting him to have changed his mind. When he looked away from her, thus withdrawing his favor of her, she had no choice but to leave the hospital with her head bowed in shame.

Hook had given everyone time to relax from that confrontation. But he had waited long enough. There were answers that needed to be shared because what happened in that clearing was giving him a headache. They were losing. He recalled that and how he’d allowed Emma to beat him to a bloody pulp rather than defend her and hurt her. He remembered seeing Regina get shot and how she’d saved baby Charming—whom had yet to be named but he took to calling him Junior—even while wounded as she was. He remembered Emma sending those weapons towards Regina and helplessly watching as they were a centimeter away from piercing Regina’s skin before he was blinded by an explosion of white magic. Magic that had healed everyone still alive inside the clearing, turned those poor souls who’d been transformed into flying monkeys back to humans, and sent the Wicked Witch to parts that were as of now unknown.

Regina finally looked at Hook and clenched her fists at her sides, “I don’t know!” Her voice was raised as she glared daggers his way.

“You have to know! Or have some bloody idea!” Hook gestured around them. “How are you still alive?”

“I don’t…” Regina faltered for a moment as her hand slipped unconsciously to her stomach where she’d been shot. “I don’t know.”

Henry cringed in his seat as he saw how Regina’s hand remained over where the wound had been.

“Yes you do! You have to.”

“Why? Because I know so much about white magic?” Regina asked with a sneer. “I know as much about white magic as you do about personal hygiene.”

“He’s not accusing you of anything, Regina.” Ruby tried to diffuse the argument before it got any worse or drew more of a crowd.

“Stay out of this, wolf.”

“Don’t you threaten her!” Hook chimed up, finding himself protective of the she-wolf. She had been the only one besides Emma who trusted him and truly helped integrate him into the merry band of good guys. If he hadn’t been so heartbroken over Emma back in the Enchanted Forest he might have taken her offer to stay with the group just to get to know her better.

“Aww, has the pirate found a new useless cause to chase after?” Regina mocked, trying not to notice how her comment injured Ruby more than it did Hook. That was not her intention.

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes and stared down at the ground. “I apologize. I did not mean…” Regina sighed, “I meant no disrespect, Ruby.”

“Oh, only Ruby.”

Ruby hit Hook to keep him from saying anything more and riling Regina up again.

“My only conclusion is that Emma…that when she was going to kill me she somehow channeled her magic through her heart and used that as a grenade in a way. The implosion of the magic had varying effects on everyone around her, but essentially she was erasing the actions done by dark magic and intentions. I’ve never.” Regina shook her head as she looked at the three people around her. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Or heard of it. It’s unprecedented. It should be impossible. She should have killed me.”

“She could never hurt you, mom. She loves you.” Henry’s voice was as small as it had been three years ago. He was once again the little boy who needed his mother’s help with his homework and a hug to make the tears and fears go away.

“Henry, I know Emma cares for me but,”

“No. Henry’s right.” Regina looked at Ruby with a raised brow, “Emma loves you. She’s been falling for you since she arrived in Storybrooke. She just, after what happened with your mother,” Ruby had the good graces to cringe over that whole issue, “She thought she didn’t deserve you and she buried her feelings. But it didn’t make them go away.”

“You guys kissed and it broke Zelena’s curse. True love’s kiss doesn’t work unless both parties love each other.” Henry knew that from his book.

Regina sighed as she finally took a seat next to Henry. She tried to find a comfortable position but after a few moments gave up, realizing there was just no becoming comfortable on these chairs.

Emma loved her, Regina smiled softly.

“When you said her heart exploded…” Hook edged the conversation back towards the issue at hand. “…does that mean it’s gone?” And if it was, how was Emma still alive?

Regina sighed, “I don’t know. Until Dr. Stanley tells us what he’s found. I have no idea what happened to Emma’s heart.”

Hook didn’t press for anything more from Regina. Not now. They all needed a little while to calm down.

It was a few minutes later when Charming made his way over to the group. “Any word?” He asked, meeting everyone’s eyes, except Henry’s who was fast asleep, his head nestled upon Regina’s lap.

“No.” Ruby answered for everyone. “How’s Snow?”

“Snow and the baby are fine.” Charming looked to Regina as if he wanted to make it clear that his son and wife were fine because of Regina. His throat nearly closed as he fought with himself for a moment before throwing caution to the wind. “Thank you.” He fought back the tears that were pricking against his eyes. “Thank you for…”

“You’re welcome.” Regina didn’t know how to handle the sight of Charming’s tears and was hoping he would walk away. She had to admit that a bit of the weight within her chest had lifted at the news that Snow and the baby were okay. Regina never thought that she would risk her life to save the child of Snow White and Prince Charming. Ever. And yet she’d also never thought she’d fall in love with their daughter and share a son with her. It seemed life truly was full of surprises.

“Any decisions on a name?” Ruby changed the subject to save everyone the awkwardness they’d all fallen into.

“Robert Lucas.” As close as a namesake for Regina and Ruby as they could find.

Ruby was all smiles as she heard her nephew’s name for the first time.

“Congratulations, mate.” Hook stepped up and offered his hand to Charming. Charming took it and shook it firmly.

Just as the men dropped their hands away Emma’s door opened and Dr. Stanley slowly peeked out into the hallway. Once he saw that the crowd was still around he stepped all the way out of the room with a calming smile.

The smile put everyone at ease. “How is she?” Regina asked from her seat, unwilling to move and wake Henry just yet.

“She’s doing as well as can be expected. Her body is recovering from the shock. The amount of spells that poor girl has suffered through in the last few days alone is astounding.” Regina cringed, knowing she was somewhat at fault for that. “She needs plenty of rest. Her body is in a bit of shock as is her mind. She needs a little while to catch up with herself. She suffered a decent concussion. I’d like to keep her here for a few days to just keep an eye on her and give her plenty of fluids. But she should make a full recovery.”

“And her heart?” Hook asked, shocking Charming, who hadn’t been around for their conversation a half hour before.

“Right where it is meant to be.” Dr. Stanley assured them all and watched as a visible weight came off their shoulders at that fact. “She’s asking for you, Regina.”

“I’ll watch after if.” Ruby promised as she helped Regina lift Henry up so that Regina could stand and Ruby take her place. Henry was so exhausted that he slept right on through the shift in pillows.

“Tell her we love her.” David requested as Regina made her way into Emma’s room, the door closing behind her.

Emma was hooked up to a heart monitor and had a an IV in her arm with two fluids being administered.

“I thought he’d never leave.” Emma complained immediately as she turned her head to see Regina walking slowly towards her. There was a chair right by the bed that she hoped Regina would take. But it seemed Regina preferred to stand, as she made herself comfortable at the end of the bed. Practically as far away from Emma as she could be.

“He may have very well saved your life. I think you should show a little more respect.”

“Yes, dear.” Emma’s sarcastic response did not elicit a smile or even an eyeroll from Regina. “Regina, are you alright?”

“Am I alright?” What kind of idiotic question was that. Of course she wasn’t alright! She’d nearly lost both Henry and Emma in the last few hours alone. She’d been shot. Her sister was most likely dead. She’d finally been chosen over Blue Fairy. Charming had given his nod of approval to her. Her son shot her. Emma almost died. Emma almost killed her only to save her and almost die herself. So no! No. She was not alright.

“I’m fine.” She lied.

“Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional sounds just about right.”

“This isn’t the time for games, Ms. Swan.”

“No. This is the perfect time for games, Regina. We all almost died. I almost killed you! Hell, Henry shot you! You saved my my…”

“Brother. She had a boy.” Regina supplied, realizing Emma didn’t even know if it had been a boy or a girl. “His name is Robert Lucas.”

“That’s…” Emma felt a lump grow in her throat, “…a fine name for a Prince. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, a fine name for a Prince.” Regina nodded her head, realizing Emma wasn’t as secure about this new sibling as she was trying to make everyone believe.

Emma cleared her throat and blinked away the tears in her eyes. “How is Henry?”

“He’s…” Regina sighed, “…doing as well as can be expected. He had a moment to speak with Dr. Hopper but he didn’t seem willing to talk to anyone about what happened just yet. He’s currently sleeping just outside with Ruby watching over him.”

“He’ll need help after all of this. Professional help.” The kind of help Emma wasn’t sure Archie could give him. But Henry trusted Archie so really only time would tell how things would pan out.

“Yes, I’ve already spoken to Archie about a session a day for the next two weeks just to help ground him.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Though that meant they would be staying in Storybrooke.

Regina bowed her head, glad that Emma agreed with her.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the two women. “Emma I…”

“I love you.” Emma blurted out. Not waiting to see what kind of rejection Regina was going to try and give her. She knew the signs of Regina pulling away. If she had learned anything from those fake memories it was how to read Regina better than Regina could herself. She’d already been decent at it. But now she knew Regina like the back of her hand and could anticipate what she’d do in an effort to protect herself.

Emma wasn’t going to let Regina protect herself from her. “I should have said it to you two years ago. I should have defended you better against everyone. I should have helped you escape your mother’s clutches instead of using Henry as a weapon to hurt you. I can’t take all of that back. I wish I could. But what I can do is promise that I will never let anyone hurt you if I can stop it. I will keep your heart safe and I will love you with the type of passion and fire, devotion, and adoration that you deserve.”

Regina was shocked silent. She swallowed twice in an effort to make her throat and mouth less dry. “I…Emma it’s.”

“complicated. I know. Everything is complicated. It’s never not going to be complicated. I don’t care, Regina. I don’t. I just need to know that you’ll give us a try. That you’ll give us a chance and we’ll handle all the complicated messes that come our way, together.”

Emma felt her heart halt in her chest as she waited for Regina to answer her. “Please…” She whispered, desperate. “Give us a chance. Please don’t run away from me because you think I’m going to hurt you.” Emma didn’t think she was physically capable of hurting Regina. She’d broken free of a spell no one had ever broken free of because she had been so terrified to lose Regina, period, let alone by her own hand. She would rather die herself than have let any one of those weapons touch Regina’s skin.

Regina shook her head from side to side, making Emma’s heart fall into the pit of her stomach.

“You foolish, stupid, stubborn, woman.” Regina muttered, with each insult she took one large step towards Emma until she was at the head of the bed and leaning over just above Emma’s face. “I love you, too.” Regina whispered the declaration against Emma’s lips as she kissed the blonde softly. “You’re going to have to learn to let me speak. Or I’ll simply have to sew your lisp shut.”

Emma laughed, even as she shivered at the threat lacing Regina’s words. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Regina cupped Emma’s cheek and brushed her thumb slowly across the unmarred skin. “Let’s give this a try.”

Emma’s smile was brilliant and it warmed Regina’s heart and gave her hope. Hope that this wasn’t a mistake and that she and Emma really could make it; together. For real this time.

**THE END**


	19. Chapter 19

**Epilogue**

Emma stood stiffly just to the side of the grill. The smoke was light and the burgers smelled delicious. By Regina’s apple tree Henry was playing a hand game with Evan. The sun was shining and the air was cool. There was a nice breeze that blew the apple blossoms around the yard making it look magical. Emma couldn’t help but breathe in deeply as she let herself feel the tranquility of the moment.

Today was just about having a good time with friends especially after all of the crap that they had gone through in the last few months. Rumple coming back from the dead only for Neal to die. Henry had taken that very hard but surprisingly Rumple was being very helpful. Henry and Rumple were dealing with the loss together. At first both Regina and Emma had been slow to even let Rumple have time with Henry unsupervised but when Rumple had put his life on the line to save Henry’s from an enraged Queen Elsa of Arendelle, Emma had reconsidered their stance on Rumple. Now twice a week Henry spent time with Gold. They hadn’t made it to allowing Henry to spend the night with Gold and Belle, but Emma knew they were getting closer.

There was to be no magic today. There were people visiting from out of town who did not need to know that magic really existed in this little town of Storybrooke. Emma and Regina had thought it might be good for Henry to see some of the people he’d come to know while he and Emma were in New York. And Emma had missed her friends. So after dealing with the barrage of questions and accusations from Snow, Charming, and Blue Fairy, Emma had put her foot down and threatened to pick up and leave Storybrooke with Regina and Henry and leave her paranoid parents and their new baby behind. Blue Fairy was still unhappy with the situation but Snow and David were a little more understanding.

“Don’t look now, but I think we’re being watched.” Natasha whispered conspiratorially as she nonchalantly looked over her shoulder. Emma followed her friend’s gaze and saw Regina standing off to the side with Janice. Each woman held a glass of Regina’s famous apple cider in hand. They were both doing a grand job of pretending not to look at Emma and Natasha.

Emma knew how jealous Regina could become, not that she had any reason to be, but after the last three months she had hoped the older woman’s fears would have been eased just a little. Emma was the one that had walked in to find Robin Hood kissing Regina in his effort to convince Regina that they were meant to be together—twice. Regina had made it clear to the man that if he tried that a third time she would have Emma arrest him for sexual assault. He needed the time to adjust to the situation, or so Regina said. That didn’t help Emma’s anger and distaste for the man.

It had been nearly six months since they found Zelena locked away in Pandora’s box and freed Gold from it. Six months since Emma and Henry had moved into the mayoral mansion with Regina. Though Emma was still working towards convincing Regina to move to New York with her and Henry so they could have a fresh start away from all the drama and mishaps that living in Storybrooke Maine brought them.

She hadn’t succeeded yet, but she hadn’t given up.

As it were they were finding a new normal with each other. One that was even better than the fake memories Emma and Henry shared.

“Yes, it looks like we have.” Emma smiled at her friend and the glow around her.

Natasha and Janice were expecting their second child. This time Natasha was carrying the baby. She wasn’t very far along, but this weekend getaway was to help both women celebrate. Emma was thrilled for them both. Evan was turning three next month and from what Natasha said, was happily expecting his younger sibling. Emma wished she could say she had happily accepted her own little brother, but relationships with David and Snow were strained over the baby.

“What should we do?” Natasha asked, still speaking through the side of her mouth.

Emma took a sip from her beer bottle, “Divide and conquer.”

“Ohh…I like that plan!” She nodded quickly, “Good plan. I knew there was a reason I kept you around, Birdie.” Natasha joked as she pushed against Emma’s shoulder playfully.

“And here I thought it was just my amazing pecs and big blue eyes.”

Natasha laughed as she took a step away from Emma and towards her wife. “Yeah, well go bat those big blues at someone else. I’ve got my own green eyes to admire.”

Emma grinned as she followed Natasha across the lawn towards Regina. Natasha was quick to stand beside Janice and kiss her on the cheek as she arrived. Emma wasn’t as quick to do so with her girlfriend. Instead she smiled and stood just behind Regina, her arm brushing against the brunette’s shoulder. Regina didn’t like public displays of affection. Especially in front of people who were as good as strangers to her.

It wasn’t until Janice and Natasha walked away that Emma wrapped an arm around Regina’s waist from behind and kissed her neck.

“Having fun?” Regina’s tone gave nothing away. For all Emma knew she was dreading all of this.

“I am, actually. They’re doing well. I’m happy for them.”

“Mmm…” Regina hummed before taking a sip of her cider. “They are pleasant enough.”

Emma smiled, that was good. That kind of compliment meant that Janice had won Regina over. Just like Emma knew she would, which is why Emma had stolen Natasha to give Regina no choice but to talk with Janice. Who was the chief of staff to an up and coming politician in New York. Emma knew that they would be like two peas in a pod. Just like her and Natasha were. “I knew you’d like them.”

“I said no such thing.” Regina corrected quickly, tensing in Emma’s arms.

“It’s okay to like them Regina. They’re good people. Both of them. And Evan is very cute too.”

Regina sighed, “Very well. Perhaps I do…. _like_ them. You were.” Regina swallowed, suddenly having trouble speaking.

“I was…” Emma probed internally thrilled with what was about to come.

Regina rolled her eyes, “You were right.”

Emma smirked and kissed the side of Regina’s neck once more. “I know. I often am whether you like to admit it, or not.”

Regina chuckled, “Cocky.”

“Not if I’m right.”

Regina turned her head and stared into Emma’s eyes. She sighed softly as her facial expression softened almost immediately at seeing Emma’s smiling face. “I love you.” Regina found herself breathing out the admission freely.

Emma’s smile, if it were possible, widened tremendously. “And I, I love you, Regina.”

Regina stole a brief kiss before she walked away from Emma to check on the food they had cooking in the kitchen. Emma watched her go until she couldn’t see her anymore.

Henry was chasing Evan around the yard smiling. Emma was happy to see the boy smiling. Smiles were hard to come by these days. Emma couldn’t blame the boy. They had all been through a lot and they were all dealing with things as best as they could.

They were all seeing a therapist. Though, Emma preferred to see a shrink that actually had a degree, not one given to him by a curse. Besides, it wouldn’t do for Archie to see all of them, and as Regina and Henry were already his patients, Emma didn’t mind taking the three hour drive into Boston to see a new psychiatrist once a week. Even though she was weary of doctors, she’d done her research this time and the doctor she was seeing wasn’t a flying monkey planted in her life by the Wicked Witch. Her parents had no reason to be paranoid. They hadn’t had to deal with as much subterfuge as her in the last few years. They should really take notes from how she handled things.

Emma’s doctor was just a regular psychiatrist that was helping Emma get passed her PTSD. Finding appropriate substitutes for the situations that Emma had lived through with her new shrink was tough, but it was great when she could use analogy’s that were spot on to the truth and her poor doctor wouldn’t know the difference.

After six months of being back in Storybrooke, evil apocalyptic drama free, she had broached the subject to Regina about having a few friends of hers from New York stay for a weekend. At first Regina had been reluctant but eventually she had caved. Emma had ways of making her girlfriend cave now. Ways that she wished she’d been aware would work when she’d first met Regina and could have used them to save herself a few headaches.

Regina, believe it or not, complained when they first started ‘dating’. When things became sexual it was very clear that the memories Emma had of how to touch Regina and make her feel pleasure the likes of which even the Evil Queen herself hadn’t known existed, were based in fact. Emma knew just how to touch Regina to give her pleasure. She didn’t have to ‘learn’ her lover’s body the way that Regina had to learn Emma’s. She had a foot up in the ‘game’. Emma had a foot up in most areas of their relationship. But that advantage often worked well when times arose that Regina wanted to close herself off to Emma and just give up on what they had built together.

Emma knew how much Regina wanted her, needed her, and she knew just how to reassure her that everything they were going through, they were going through together. Emma knew how to touch Regina from those memories, but it was all fake before. She’d never actually _touched_ Regina’ skin with her lips the way she did now. She’d never openly and willingly touched the parts of Regina’s body that she did now unconsciously. It was all new. Whether Emma remembered things or she didn’t.

Besides, when Emma couldn’t solve things on her own, Henry was used as a buffer.

They were doing okay. Their little family of three was going to be just fine. Emma was sure of it and as she stared at Evan and the way that Henry lit up around him, and the joy Natasha and Janice obviously felt, she pondered what it would be like if their family of three became a family of four.

That discussion would come much, MUCH later.

For now Emma could wait. After all they were still alive, and together, which she couldn’t say for everyone. They were living a life together raising their son, just like in the fake memories. Except now they knew who they were. They knew their real pasts. They accepted each other for exactly who they were.

It was a work in progress that was going well for them all.

After all they were still learning how to be together in this reality, and Emma was loving every second of it.

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE thank you to Lola and Tiff who organized the Swan Queen Big Bang as well as littlegreenfish who was so kind as to make the art for this story. I'd also like to thank my three cheerleaders. You know who you are. I appreciate all your support and help.


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